When I was asked to write a piece about my American Christmas I was happy to do so. Not to represent my country, but to share a piece of my life.
When I was asked to write a piece about my American Christmas I was happy to do so. Not to represent my country, but to share a piece of my life.
The United States is large – I'm from Boston, in the north-east corner – and it varies greatly between one state and another, between urban and rural.
There is no one America, and no one American.
My parents are from different states, different communities, and different backgrounds. Our Christmas celebration is not strictly 'traditional' – it's our own living tradition that we have created over the years.
In our house, we decorate a tree with the odd ornaments that we have collected over the years, even some cute-but-ugly ones my sister and I made in primary school art classes. The last two to go on the tree are a pair of glass ornaments that my parents gave to my sister and I when we were young.
Mine, a blue dolphin; my sister's, a green-tailed mermaid. Above all, in my family, we love food. My mom is a talented and a curious cook, continually saving recipes from the internet or the newspaper. When we gather as a family for a holiday, the meals we create – usually, each person works on something different – are often idiosyncratic.
One Thanksgiving, for example, we skipped the turkey and instead made food from the country Turkey. Christmas Eve, however, has been fairly consistent. The first Christmas my parents celebrated together, my mother gave my father a hand-cranked pasta machine.
Then children came, and on subsequent Christmas Eves, my parents would have boosted us little ones up so we could reach the counter, mixing egg and flour with our hands and taking joy in this sanctioned mess-making.
To this day, the old pasta machine is still going strong, and now we are tall enough to reach the counter on our own. This year will be a little different. My parents and my sister will be coming to South Africa and we will spend Christmas here.
We speak often on Skype, but I miss them and look forward to their arrival. It is always nice to come back together for the holiday, wherever we might be.
