Traditionally Untraditional

I've got Christmas fever. There is no way around it, I just do. I've been playing Nat King Cole's Christmas cd's on repeat for the last two weeks. And even youtubing Kenny G jazz Christmas. (Hey don't knock it 'til you hear it, Kenny G plays good music.)

Anyway, I love Christmas. I love it more than any other time of the year. I'm sure most people love Christmas. What's not to love? Snow, cookies, pies, turkey, candy, stuffing, chocolate peppermint deliciousness, egg nog, brandy, wine, fires, stockings, the fat man in a red coat...do I even need to go on? I am aware that more than half of my reasons are because of food, but Christmas does bring about some divine food. Food that I am dreaming about after being in the land of fried fish, white rice, and long slimy noodles all the time.

Sometimes I get seasonally depressed around Christmas. I think of all the other families out there, and how everyone and their mother's mother gets together for Christmas. There are traditional dinners, traditional gift giving, traditional Christmas light seeing, everything is traditional. I have a small family. The normal mom, dad, brother and myself kind of family.  We make Christmas as special as we can, but I find myself missing and wishing for a big family, for cousins, nieces and nephews, grandpa's and grandma's, and aunt's and uncle's running around a house that can barely fit four. When you see Christmas in the movies or on tv, you see ten or twelve people gathered around a nice oak table, passing a huge turkey over their heads, conversation so loud they don't notice the dog under the table while grandpa slips him a slice of turkey.

When my brother and I were younger, we used to spend Christmas every year in Florida at my grandma's house. She has this amazing house that she designed herself, with a waterfall and coy pond inside, an outside patio to die for. All the family used to get together over there, and we would have our own traditional Christmas. It eventually got to be too expensive to go every year, things changed, and people changed. We began to have our own little Christmas's. We still manage to get together every year, we have only been apart one Christmas so far.

I started to think about how when you get older, the things that used to be such a big deal when we were younger, are not made into such a big deal anymore. Birthday's come and go, anniversaries aren't cherished anymore, and Christmas becomes more of a hassle than a celebration. However this year, as I sit in South Korea with unfamiliar traditions all around me, I long for those quieter Christmas's with my family. I smile at the thought of my mom tiptoeing out to fill the stockings, my dad taking extra special care to wrap a KBCO cd he gives us every year from our favorite radio station. I am excited to have the parade on tv in the back ground, as the cinnimon rolls rise in the oven. I think that even though at the end of the day, my mom so stressed out that my brother has nothing to eat and nobody is grateful for all the time and effort she's put into dinner, the small traditions have still been carried out. We'll go to an afternoon movie if we can agree on one, and we'll come home and gripe about all there is to clean up.

I think about how to bring back the bang in Christmas this year, how to make it a big deal again. If I can get my brother and my mother to get along for more than a day, that would be a feat in itself.  My brother will only spend one day with us, and drive back to his house late in the evening after dinner. But I'll wish that he will stay longer, that he may even decide to stay the night. I'll wish like I do every year, that we all just sit around the fire a little longer and talk. But the day will pass by like it usually does. I will be shortly packing to return to whatever country I'm in at the moment, my mom will return to her patients, my dad to the computer, and my brother to whatever job he does that makes a hell of lot more money than the rest of us. And then I'll be thinking about how to make Christmas better next year, how to keep the holiday spirit a littler longer, or how to make it mean more to us the next time.

However this year I am going to do just that. I will have Christmas music blasting 24 hours a day, and the oven baking something delicious every morning. I will be over-cheered, over-cooked, and over-Christmas by the time the new year rolls around.  I'll take the time to set out my mom's holly china, and add pumpkin spice to everything. This year I'll be sure to let my family know how much I have appreciated their support in this last year, and how thankful I am to have them in my life. I will forgive them for things I have been holding on to, and make sure they know I love them.

After all, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year right?