Christmas

Christmas has always been a strange time of year for me. Being that I'm Jewish, when I was a kid and even my Jewish best friend got to celebrate Christmas with her mom's side of the family, I always found December 25th cold, lonely, and boring. It was like a happy made for tv movie; everyone around me was starring in it, and I was the production assistant who brought sandwiches and cookies to the director and the crew and then went to get them coffee and got locked out of the studio. This is no longer the case - I am definitely a big part of Christmas now, and Christmas is a big part of me. I look forward to going to Andrea and Darin's house every year to exchange gifts, avoid eating sauerkraut, and be witness to how good Anna and Aidan are becoming at serving John beer.

Last year I started to become fascinated with how Christmas might be celebrated in other parts of the world - a strange fixation for the little Jewish girl from Montreal to adopt, I know. In Vanuatu it's surely very different, I thought, because it's much much too warm there for Santa to wear that big red suit. Do they even know who Santa is? Do the children believe in him? The Hallmark holiday that it has become in North America, do they exchange gifts, or maybe just pigs? Where do they buy their cards if all that is sold at the co-op is canned vegetables, rice, and individual Peter Jackson cigarettes? These are all things I hope to find out one day.

In Taiwan, Christmas isn't a holiday. Technically December 25th is "Constitution Day" (also, yet to find out what this means) and it used to be a statutory holiday but it is no longer. Buxibans such as mine have the option of giving their teachers a day off. My students are all very well trained to sing carols such as "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" and "Jingle Bells", but none of them know what the words mean. They came to class on the 24th all decked out in red and green and white and sparkles, but in all essence the 25th is a regular day for them. They go to school, they go home, they don't get presents and they don't have big meals with their families.

We, on the other hand, celebrated Christmas as if it was our job. On Christmas eve we gathered at my friend Sara's house with turkeys and stuffing and mashed potatoes and wine and vodka and presents. We stuffed our faces with Christmas goodness and exchanged silly gifts - I received a giant ceramic monkey bank. We had a big sleepover and no one woke up alone on Christmas morning. We moved our party over to another friend's house where we spent the day continuing to stuff our faces, this time with brunch food and champagne, and sitting out in the sun on the roof enjoying the view of the Kaohsiung harbor. I know that we were all missing our families, and the snow, a little bit, but getting to spend this day with our Taiwan family was a damn good second prize.

Tell Santa what you want for Christmas.

Hanging out on the roof.

Christmas sunset.