Merry Crisis
This year, while on placement I made the executive decision to not return home for breaks, including Christmas. I look back on this decision now with a small amount of regret, but it was a learning experience all the same.
An American Christmas is very similar to a British Christmas except the main meat on Christmas Day is not turkey, but anything else, often beef. The gift giving is the same but the family I stayed with were all about tradition. Christmas Eve involved going to the Children’s nativity service at the local church, having photos in front of the fireplace and drinking sparkling wine in homemade pyjamas. Fortunately, this family were gracious enough to include me in all these traditions but it lacked that certain feeling of Christmas because it wasn’t how my family does Christmas Eve. The same for Christmas Day where we opened stockings that were hung over the fireplace; unwrapped presents from under the tree and had Christmas dinner, then everyone just drifted off and did there own thing. It was Christmas but it wasn’t how my family are at Christmas.
That’s not to generalise for all American families or all British families but my family usually play video games on Christmas Eve, often Mario Kart or Wii Party and maybe a board game or card game, like Cards Against Humanity. For Christmas Day (when we were younger, and by younger I mean we only stopped in the last 2 years or so) we would bring our stockings into my Mum’s room and lay in her bed eating the chocolate we would always get: chocolate coins; chocolate orange and some kind of tube of candy. We would then move downstairs and open tree presents and then help cook Christmas dinner, always a bone dry turkey and finish the evening off by playing more (usually new) video games and playing other (probably new) board games. As you can see my family’s Christmases are quite involved, we spend a lot of time together but the best day is the day after Christmas, Boxing Day.
Americans don’t celebrate Boxing Day, so many people end up just going back to work but this Christmas me and my friend went shopping in Old Town Alexandria which felt a little more like home because of Boxing Day sales. On Boxing Day at home we would often be playing with or setting up things that we received on Christmas and stuffing our faces with food. Boxing Day is also the day we would visit our grandparents and have a mini Christmas dinner with them. There would be more presents and more board and card games and the day would finish off with little bread rolls and sausages. Boxing Day is probably one of my favourite days of the year, it involves just as much food but is often half as much stress for everyone involved because the hype of Christmas is coming to an end.
I think Christmas would have been difficult on my own in the first place but the fact that everyone else was having fun with their families and I was practically on my own just made for a difficult time, although that’s not to say I deserve pity because I chose to spend Christmas away and I probably wouldn’t have made a different decision in retrospect. I now have a greater appreciation for being at home for the holidays which I didn’t have before. Without giving too much away, this Christmas was probably the worst I’ve ever had, but at least I now have a greater appreciation for my family and if this one was the worst, it can only get better from here… Right?
