As an expat, it’s typical to feel hireth during the holidays. But what exactly am I homesick for? Do I even remember?
Am I missing my childhood Christmases? Missing enough chocolate and sweeties to kill my current self, and fighting with my siblings over who accidently – or intentionally – did the first picture in my paint-with-water colouring book? I remember when applying a little water to a black and white page and watching it turn to colour seemed like magic. Makes me sound like a complete dinosaur. Now it’s all amazing colouring apps, that not only change hue based on your mood, but glow in the dark and automatically email your picture to Grandma after analysing which famous artist you colour most like. Yep. I’m a dinosaur.
Surely, I can’t miss making paper chains – those ubiquitous red and green links stuck together with disgusting-tasting glue you had to lick, that cut your tongue and detached from the ceiling above your bed in the middle of the night, prompting screams and a groggy parental search for the push pin that must be in your bed somewhere. I can’t miss pulling Christmas crackers – then pulling dangerously small plastic toys out of the gravy while trying to keep the tissue paper hat from slipping over my eyes.
Do I really miss my young adult Christmases, typically spent working? Horses don’t have an ‘I’m out of the stables for Christmas, so please leave a message’ setting. As an instructor at a large equitation centre, I was often on duty. Christmas smelled of straw and warm horse breath, cooked barley to add to the winter feeds. In fact, it smelled and felt like every other day of the equine year – which could be translated as every day with a horse is like Christmas.
So, it would seem I remember every detail: every song, every whiff of brandy-soaked Christmas pudding, every favourite film, every Christmas horsy hug. Maybe I do know what I’m homesick for.
Oops! I almost forgot Thanksgiving! Though I’ve celebrated more Thanksgivings in America than Christmases in England, holiday traditions, apparently, must start young to be ingrained in the psyche. But I wish all my American readers a very Happy Thanksgiving.
Whichever holiday you’re celebrating, wherever you are in the world, may your festivities replicate your fondest memories.
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