Listening to: Ooh La La from The Dirty Picture
Mood: Matches the beautiful Bangalore sunshine outside
So. Tis the season. Or rather was the season, I’m a bit late
in writing this. This year’s Christmas for our family has been a very odd
disconnect from Christmas all together. Our stuff wasn’t readily available to
us yet, not to mention our not having our own place to live in, so there wasn’t
any decorations to put up. Our Christmas tree found a new home with some good
friends before we left the states. Halloween passed without much to-do, as did
Thanksgiving, so there hasn’t been any build up to the holidays. No strolls through
crowded, fully lit, stores begging us to buy anything and everything we could
ever want. No slow cooling of the weather into a delightfully crisp cold
December, and no planning for family events and parties leading up to the
holidays. It’s been rather un-Christmassy if you ask me.
The year I turned 13, my family moved down to the Florida
Keys. We didn’t really know many people yet, and obviously the cold weather was
notably absent. For one born and brought up mostly in the mid-west, this is
considered sacrilege. You just can’t have Christmas without cold weather. This
is rather reminiscent of that year, only more removed. There are days when I feel like my life in
the US wasn’t 3 months ago, it was a lifetime ago and all seems rather
insignificant now because my experiences in India have been nothing if not
very, very different from my life in the US. Now more than ever, I am feeling
the almost physical sensation of having one chapter of my life close as I
struggle to keep up with a new one. While I am enjoying my time in India
immensely and do my best to avoid being maudlin over the US, I do still
occasionally feel a bit of wistfulness for the way things are there. I’m pretty
sure this is not too uncommon.
I hope I’m not giving the impression that my Christmas was
terrible. It definitely was not. We spent Christmas Eve day cleaning and
sorting our new apartment like rabbits on meth. After 4 straight days of
nonstop unpacking, I was exhausted and SO ready to be done with that. Ahem.
Back on track. My sister in law and crew picked us up around 8 and we headed
back to her house for some quality family time with them. I have missed them
terribly the past year while they were in India, so it’s been absolutely
wonderful to see them so often. We broke open some coconut rum, Black dog
whiskey, and Indian wine. It was a pleasant evening. I finally met my match for
spicy byriani. It was the kind that you curse and swear never to eat again
because it was so damn spicy while shoving more in your mouth because it’s just
that damn good. Yep. Once I’m in my kitchen, my family is totally turning into
guinea pigs. I am getting byriani down if it kills me. Anyhow.
We woke up slowly at 9 and lazed around for a while until
hubby’s brother in law’s niece came over to share the day. Now if you know
anything at all about the G family, it’s that the adults are night owls and are
very jealous over their sleep. We love us some sleep. This has all changed
since the husband started work and the oldest girl in the family started school.
We now sleep at 11:30 or so (seriously.) and wake up no later than 8 (yep,
still not kidding), although we’re usually up much earlier because of my
husband’s propensity to turn the alarm on much earlier than he plans to get
up. It was very nice to sleep in for
that extra hour. My daughters and nieces
had tons of fun playing together as usual. The other niece came over and we had
a wonderfully lazy day that involved some Bollywood movies, lots of chatting,
and lots of alcohol. It’s been three months since I had anything at all
alcoholic to drink. I know, I know, but try not to fall over about this. So
that, combined with the fact that I’ve lost a bit of weight, and that it was
Christmas and I missed my family, didn’t bode well for me. I won’t go into it much
because the husband issued a gag order along with a threat of dismemberment if
I ever get that drunk during the day again. In that respect, this was a first,
I never drink during the day. Let’s just say I had lots of fun with some Indian
wine, Black dog whiskey (yep, I still love me some wine and whiskey, just not
together) and coconut rum. After much silliness, and then worshipping the
porcelain god, I have decided once again that I really don’t like being that
drunk. There are only 2 other occasions in my life where I have been that
smashed. They both involved a friend of mine who can only be described as epic.
As much as I love him, it’s probably good that we’re not around each other too
much. He’s a crazy bastard and I would probably turn into a drunk. Again with
the verbal meandering, pull it together here.
So that was our Christmas. I miss
the other half of my family an awful lot, but I don’t think Christmas has much
to do with that, I miss them anyhow. I’m looking forward to the next disconnect
that will be New Year’s. I think I’ll take it a little slower though. My sister
in law is having a party (and not that kind of party) and I don’t want to be
dancing on the tables. J
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