I’ve been living away from my family for about 14 years now and all those years I probably came home for Christmas three times. It’s getting harder to come home once I have a job and eventually have a child. I’m getting used to spending Christmas just with my husband and eventually just the three of us. Sometimes we have a party with our friends who are in the same situation with us. When you don’t have family, your friends become your family. There are times when I do wish I could spend Christmas with my family or even extended family. Some of the greatest Christmas memory I’ve ever had:
- Spending a holiday weekend in a huge rental cabin up in the mountain with my parents, brothers and my mom’s side of family.
My aunts, uncles, cousins, grandma, all twenty of us spent the holiday weekend together. We played games, swam, played tennis, hiked, it was so much fun. In Indonesia, we don’t eat turkey. Instead, each of us ate one whole Cornish hen. When you were a kid, a Cornish hen was pretty ginormous. I missed those moments and not sure if my son will ever experience that. - Getting a Christmas present from Santa himself.
That’s another thing that I had a fond memory of. My parents always took me and my brothers to see Santa and actually got a present from him instead of just sitting on his lap. Actually I took my son to a Christmas celebration at one of the community center last week, and they don’t even allow kids to sit on Santa’s lap anymore with the increasing number of creepy people out there and H1N1 issue.
Sometimes I chuckles when I think about those precious memories. You can only live the life you are given, and hopefully I could re-create those moments for my son with our friends. HO…HO…HO….
Tags: childhood memory, christmas tradition
