Christmas to me

Christmas to me is not now. It's in the past.

The best Christmas moments are not happening right now, they already happened. And year after year the Christmas's of today will become the Christmas's of the past.

Christmas to me is Kevin McCallister singing White Christmas in the mirror of his parents bathroom, using a comb as a mic.

It's Ralphie finally realizing his dream of owning a Red Rider BB Gun is finally happening.

George Baily finally realizing that his world would be chaos if he were never born.

The flawless voice belonging to Judy Garland wishing us a merry little Christmas.

This year nostalgia is my favorite gift.

The traditions keep rolling with the giving of new pajamas on Christmas Eve.

 

It's a traditional Christmas Eve champagne toast. 

Traditions are different from home to home, town to town, and country to country. But we all have them and they are all ours.

I'm home for Christmas, and this year it's not in my dreams.

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Hot water

One thing, among many, that I am loving about being home is hot water.

In Morocco I had a shower. Many volunteers like me, or Moroccans for that matter were not so lucky. To have a shower make sense I also had a hot water heater. It didn't work that well. It was just a small unit that, by the heat of an open flame, heated water as it went though the machine. It was powered by gas. I had to change the gas tank monthly and sometimes had surprisingly cold moments when the tank decided to run out.

This hot water heater almost always malfunctioned. Sometimes I couldn't get it to come through to my shower. Most of the time I spend the entire shower temperature regulating. I had only two temperature choices: scalding hot and freezing. For some reason it just didn't create the perfect mix of hot and cold.

On many cold, cold days and nights I dreamed of the free flowing hot water showers in America. Now those dreams are a reality once again.

My showers are usually quick anymore. A swift wash of the hair, a conditioning treatment, a body rinse and I'm good to go. But over the past couple weeks I have been hanging out under the hot water just to warm me all the way through. I have a lot of cold showers to make up for.

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Tradition

Sometimes things that are tradition just go on without any thought involved. Traditions are so ingrained into our culture, so that's only natural. However, when your traditions are taken away from you and new ones are put in front of you, you begin to realize just how important these traditions really are.

This past Thursday my mom and I put up our Christmas tree in our living room. A faker than fake, pre-lit, plastic tree, full of tradition. I dragged it up from the basement, full of determination, eager to get this symbol of Christmas up to see.

We may walk by our Christmas trees without paying much mind to why we have them. Please learn along with me, the origins of the Christmas tree.

Legend has it that Martin Luther began the tradition of decorating trees to celebrate Christmas. One crisp Christmas Eve, about the year 1500, he was walking through snow-covered woods and was struck by the beauty of a group of small evergreens. Their branches, dusted with snow, shimmered in the moonlight. When he got home, he set up a little fir tree indoors so he could share this story with his children. He decorated it with candles, which he lighted in honor of Christ's birth.

The Christmas tree tradition most likely came to the United States with Hessian troops during the American Revolution, or with German immigrants to Pennsylvania and Ohio, adds Robson.

But the custom spread slowly. The Puritans banned Christmas in New England. Even as late as 1851, a Cleveland minister nearly lost his job because he allowed a tree in his church. Schools in Boston stayed open on Christmas Day through 1870, and sometimes expelled students who stayed home.

The Christmas tree market was born in 1851 when Catskill farmer Mark Carr hauled two ox sleds of evergreens into New York City and sold them all. By 1900, one in five American families had a Christmas tree, and 20 years later, the custom was nearly universal.

Christmas tree farms sprang up during the depression. Nurserymen couldn't sell their evergreens for landscaping, so they cut them for Christmas trees. Cultivated trees were preferred because they have a more symmetrical shape then wild ones.

From http://www.christmas-tree.com/where.html

The Kennedy's in front of the White House tree

The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center

The iconic tree of Charlie Brown

If you're interested take a moment to browse history.com by clicking here to watch some videos about Christmas trees.

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Fast times

The reason that my postings have been so sparse is also a story in itself.

Coming back home is as hard to do as it is easy. You jump right back into things as if they were on hold while you were gone. That part is easy. The warm showers, the wide variety of foods, and the central heating.

What's not so easy is adjusting to a life so opposite than the one you were just living for two years. As much as I wanted to use this time to rest I feel like I've barely rested at all. That is why my blog has been so bare, I've been so busy trying to reestablish myself in America. It sure is a change getting used to a faster pace of life compared to the one I was living.

Between trying to get the Moroccan bread weight off, figuring out my own health insurance, and trying to put myself out there for jobs I've got my work cut out for me.

Last week I had my first job interview. In short I crashed and burned. It was an interview with a small alternative newspaper in Lansing. By the end of the interview the editor was willing to put me out there for a test run where I covered an Occupy Lansing meeting. I was confident and collected and loved every minute of it. When it was time for the editor to read the my short story about it he wasn't impressed. He called me inexperienced.

That is what I will be dealing with right now. Instead of going out and getting job experience I went out and got world experience. I know it will pay off and I know it is worth it. I just have to get employers to believe that too.

But in better news I am loving being able to jump in my car and go where ever I want whenever I want. I love going out to get coffee and sitting in a cafe without being stared at. In short I love my freedom.

Just like it was a process getting set up in Morocco I will be making the same process back here in the US.

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