A Christmas Moment
Celebrating the Christmas holiday season while living overseas can sometimes feel…to be honest…a little forced. With a fake tree and tropical heat, and no close friends or family to celebrate with, we didn’t really get into it.
The most genuine moment of all this year was during this photo session at the embassy Christmas party where my husband dressed up as Santa and had children lined up to get a picture with him. Neither of our children recognized him as their dad. Our son didn’t want to be anywhere near him when it came to his turn and was dragging me away by my shirt as I snapped this photo of our daughter who reluctantly sat on his lap. It was pure skepticism of who this sweaty bearded man dressed in ridiculously hot clothing for this weather was – Santa or daddy, she knew something wasn’t quite right…
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Aww. First beautiful picture!
Second, so sweet!
Ohh how I hear you on the forced Christmas thing. I was such a grinch this year for many many reasons. chris and i have celebrated four married christmases now and every single one with chris family instead of mine or on our own. It wouldn’t be so bad except that my family actually has traditions that I miss dearly and that I’d like to try and pass down to Will, but my husbands family doesn’t. To them, it’s just an excuse to travel and eat at a big extravagant Asian hotel buffet on Christmas Eve. And yet, they insist on christmas with them every year anyway. I like to travel and im happy to celebrate christmas with sand instead of snow, but this year the absence of Christmas spirit from our trip just made me so sad. I gleaned so much joy and security from our (totally nonreligious) Christmas rituals growing up and I want will to have that reassuring comfort of tradition too-especially with this lifestyle. It might take take me all year to figure out how to diplomatically change the Christmas status quo a little bit, but that’s my goal for next year
Sorry you were so sad at Christmas this year. I felt a lot like you did for different reasons but it all could have coincided with our 4-5 month decline into the culture-shock/living-abroad-shock U. I say balance and equality is the best diplomacy: one year his family, next year your family or your way. I really want holiday traditions for our kids, too. There’s a lot to figure out but we have time. Funny you mentioned the big Asian hotel buffets. We are still full from three days of the breakfast buffet in Bangkok!
The 4-5 month mark at Post coming at Christmas time definitely made me more homesick than usual too I think. We’re working on equality, its just not in my nature to want to shake things up as the daughter-in-law. A new goal for 2013 maybe! And yes, breakfast buffets!! I have a serious thing for a good Asian breakfast buffet. The one we had in Bangkok was fantastic too!
So beautiful. Thanks.