‘Tis the Season
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Occasionally we cross paths with tourists or expats and get to chatting, and they ask if we’re going ‘home’ for the holidays. Setting aside the issue of how one defines ‘home’—that’s another tale, for another day—I’m always a bit flummoxed by the holiday question. No, that’s the last time of the year I’d choose to go to the US.
The weather is generally unpleasant, people are insanely busy, expectations are unbearable, and the pressure to give people gifts they neither want nor need makes me very uncomfortable. It’s all so in-your-face. Don’t get me wrong—I love a little Christmas music, a nice slab of fruitcake, maybe a few twinkly lights. (Do not tell me you hate fruitcake. Do not. Them’s fightin’ words, in my book.) There’s much about Christmas to love.
But it’s not conducive to actually spending quality time with our friends and family, which is our priority when we go to the US.
This is not a new way of thinking for me. We did the whole festive insanity thing when our kids were small, for as many years as it seemed necessary. Then one year, one of them developed an allergic reaction to the tree and got hopped up on some kind of machine that dispensed albuterol, and Lee got out of the hospital just in time to be stuck in bed, and it was cold and rainy and rainy and rainy, and the other kid cut open a lip and bled all over everywhere, and the damned tree fell over, and we were not having any fun at all.
So after that Year of Christmas Misery, we chose to go south, as often as possible. Christmas is way more fun—for me, anyway—when there’s sunshine and sand involved. Or at least a hotel pool.
And we discovered an unexpected benefit: our children learned that different people celebrate in different ways. Some people don’t celebrate Christmas at all, because they’re not Christian. Some people celebrate even though they aren’t Christian, because it’s the commercial holiday that has spread around the world. Some people go out in the back yard and slaughter the cow they’ve been hanging onto for months, so that they can have a special meal this one day of the year. Some people check into a fancy hotel on a tropical island. Some people get up in the morning, put on a uniform, and go clean the rooms in that same hotel.
Since we started traveling full time, we’ve spent Christmas in Bangkok, Sri Lanka, and Cape Town. Each one had (obviously) a different celebratory flavor. In Bangkok, Christmas feels much more like an American-style holiday—it’s all twinkly lights and shopping, and mostly just for show. In Sri Lanka, we kind of stepped into the local British expat community and their celebrations, which was surprisingly comforting, if not especially Sri Lankan. We had a particularly memorable lunch, cooked by a British chef—turkey with all the trimmings. It was like something your grandmother would’ve made, except there were monkeys in the tree tops. And in Cape Town, we had the best-ever Christmas cake from a local bakery for breakfast, then ate lunch at a fancy Indian hotel, then went to see a penguin colony. Because if penguins in springtime don’t say Christmas, I don’t know what does.
I’d love to spend the holiday in Germany one year, hanging out at those magical-looking Christmas markets drinking mulled wine and munching on pfeffernusse and stollen. But when I look at the pictures on Instagram, it always looks so cold. If I were applying a theme to our Christmas destinations, it would be Not Cold. So that’s a maybe-one-day-if-I-lose-my-mind possibility.
This year, we’re in Buenos Aires. I get the feeling Christmas here is pretty low-key. We’ve heard no Christmas music, except the playlist on my phone, which I’ve been playing to get the persistent Evita earworms out of my head. The special Christmas treats seem to be limited to dry gingerbread cookies, dry panettone, and epic cheese plates (but I think those might be omnipresent anyway).
This year is the first time neither of our kids will be with us, which makes me a little sad, but Lee’s family is joining us, so we’ll still be joyful. And isn’t that the point, really?
The best thing about Christmas in Buenos Aires, though, is that there’s no line to visit Santa. At 7pm. On a Saturday. Ten days before Christmas. So the grown-ups have free rein for goofing. That’s festive enough for me!
I hope you have a delightful holiday season, however and wherever you spend it.
Take care,
Lisa
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