We'll face unafraid the plans that we've made, walking in a....

As I'm letting sabrinasdad.blogspot.com take up all my bandwidth, loading the video from home for Christmas, blogging in WordPad seems a logical way to pass the time.

As expected, the last 72 hours have been terrible homesickness. It's just hard to dodge all the mental cues of home, the trees and the lights and the carols and the mass and the parties and chocolates wrapped in red, gold, and green foil. It hit me like a brick, though, and a friend of my host sister's birthday party on the 23rd. I was looking at the tree and admiring the ornaments and it all flodded in, little things; like porcelain decorations my grandmother has put in the same spot in her house every year since my infancy, maybe before. Like hanging my stocking, and Christmases when things weren't so easy, and the past couple years when the boys cheer as Allison and I groan at 6:30 in the freaking morning...

I thought about what Christmas tradition really is, how in the movies they always have the same exact schedule, same plan, same routine, every year, but I don't. When I was little we always had Christmas Eve to celebrate my grandfather's birthday and come together with him at his house, but then he got old and eventually passed away and that tradition ended. For many years we went to cut down a tree as a big kickoff, then one year we got a pre-cut, then one year we had an artificial, and soon, it didn't seem right to say we had that tradition. Some years we drank cocoa, some years it was spiced cider. Some years I had the red and white candy canes, but others, around the time I was 11 or 12, I loved the neon tutti frutti ones.

And it's an expression as old as time itself, but it occurred to me that the ONLY thing I remember at every single Christmas, without fail, and never artificial, is family. Even when times were hard, when we were decorating a tree in a duplex, or an apartment, with Big Lots ornaments and a fake tree, it was us, Dad, Mom, Kim, my brothers, Allison, Grandma, Pat and Frank, Shelly and Sissy and all the little girls, and Christian too, whatever pets we had then, whatever girlfriends the boys brought home, and it made it Christmas. There is an image every year in my mind of a small room, or a large room, filled with people either way, and a tree, and the chatter and buzz of Christmastime. There is Christmas mass which, of course, I have never attended alone. I can remember a mass so far back I fell asleep in my mom's arms, while she unfortunately got stuck with me in one hand and a lit candle in the other... sorry Mom...

It always has seemed to me that older people had secrets, like how Christmas is about family, or how nice it is to have money saved, or how knowing what a surprise is makes it no fun at all, those secrets that even when the raisins tell the grapes, the young ones never understand. Some things you just have to learn yourself. You learn to save money once you've got $250 in babysitting cash and the video iPod goes on sale. You learn to let surprises wait when you don't see one coming and it wakes you right up, and you learn that Christmas is about family when you're playing house 3,100 miles away, and you see a picture someone snaps of you handing over a gift-a wallet, to your host dad, wrapped up tight, that makes him say "Ahh, a small present for your miniature dad!" [he stands around 5’5, Dad around 6’2 or 6’3 depending on his mood]- and in the picture he's laughing and you're laughing and the present is there between, symbolic of so much more.

This Christmas was not many things. It was not what I was used to, it was no white, and it was English-subtitle free. It WAS, however, eye-opening, heartwarming, and rejuvenating, seeing how Ecuador really could easily be my home. It has all the proper components: A loving family –TWO loving families, one right up close and one a little farther away –A warm bed –And room to grow, which I’m trying to fill “poco a poco”…

I’m literally praying this video will load further! It loaded to about two minutes and stopped and now every time I try to load more, it stops shorter and shorter, now at about 4 seconds… The ease and speed of the modern age…


Thank you Dad, thank you Kim, thank you Christopher and Father Noone and Sue and anyone who comes later in the video I’ve yet to see. I love you all and miss you very much. Merry Christmas---the merriest!