Home for the Holidays

I don't go home for the holidays. Seriously, if I'm more than 100 miles away from home, I just don't go there.

The first time I was away for the holidays was when I was living in Scotland. I made the choice not to come home at the end of term (17 December, the date is seared into my head). I wanted to experience the full holiday season in Scotland. In June or July, whenever I bought my ticket, this sounded like a WONDERFUL idea to me and my friend who was also living in Scotland. However, she was staying a year and by the time we actually went to Scotland to begin the whole "living abroad" thing, she freaked out and was like, "I'm going home for Christmas!" Which left me on my own, which freaked me out. As time went on, I was like, "well, okay. I'll just be alone until my other friend comes to visit a few days after Christmas. I'll figure something out."

Oh, I did. I went to spend Christmas with my boyfriend. Yeah, it was REALLY STRANGE. Like, really strange. I felt the whole time I was intruding on something. I felt out of place and out of touch with reality. Now, my boyfriend I had whilst in Scotland was from New Zealand, yet his whole family was EVERYWHERE in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD, and it just happened his uncle lived in Edinburgh, thus where it made logical sense for him to spend Christmas. He asked if he could bring me. His uncle said yes.

We road the train to Edinburgh from Glasgow on Christmas Eve, catching the almost last train. This annoyed me to no end. I thought we were going to "go out" on Christmas Eve, but no one made any move to go anywhere and we sat around drinking the liquror brought in a pillow case and eating soup. The boy and I were put up in a kid's bedroom (kids were in Glasgow) with another "family friend." It was strange on many levels. In the morning there was a sock filled with bobbles and things for the two of us, which amazed and shocked me. The cousins who were visiting (who were from Protugal) had been in charge of the stockings. We made our way over to the "main house" and the whole family opened gifts (I got a jar of apple butter and a CD, both of which I have no idea where they went). Later, we went for a walk through the "snow" coverd "hills" and I froze to death in my beautiful mint green coat.

Dinner was somewhat normal, only really missing the cranberries. After dinner, the family broke up into pieces to watch the Halo game. At some point I ended up play for almost two hours with the six year old girl until the boy started throwing up.

The boy threw up for almost two hours. I meanwhile, felt sick as well and did not sleep at bit.

Boxing day all I wanted to do was go home. However, we had no way to get home. The whole country shuts down for Boxing Day. Also, the guy who we had been crashing at his house, left for Glasgow to get his kids. This meant no bed. I wanted a bed, I wanted ginger ale, I wanted to go home.

This six year old was rather attached to me. We went to her mother's house for Boxing Day meal, which neither the boy or I ate, due to the fact we wanted to ago to Glasgow. After finding out the trains weren't running, we went to the bus station and found they were running, so we took the bus home.

Then, once back in downtown Glasgow, the boy made us wonder around for 45 minutes to catch the bus back to the flat. Finally, I stopped on Suchaihall STreet and yelled, "I AM TAKING A TAXI. YOU CAN WALK OR WAIT FOR YOUR STUPID BUS."

He got in the taxi. We made it to the grocery store before it closed and got some bread and butter and lunch meat of some sort ( I think ham) and American Ginger Ale. Thus ended our hoilday.

The next Christmas I spent away from home was last year, when the holiday fell in the middle of the week and my husband couldn't get off. We ended up being invited over to my aunt and uncle's house for their Christmas lunch. They celebrate on Christmas Eve, thus there was no presents to be opened and instead they all marvled on how I had grown up so much since they had last seen me (which had been almost four years, and at that time I was very blonde). It was still strange and almost sort of loney once we went back our our apartment. We had opened our gifts on Christmas Eve, mostly because we were all alone, having been left by his family who had come to visit for a few days before Christmas. it was strange having our "meal" the day before Christmas Eve. It was strange not really celebrating Christmas in any way, as we had opened our gifts the night before (which was something I had never done.)

This year, being even farther away from anyone we known than we were last year, means we are really on our own. No aunts or uncles, or cousins for miles upon miles. We bought groceries yesterday and everyone was like, "Oh, you're staying here for Christmas?" It was like they were taking pitty on us for having no where to go. I'm not over joyed by the fact it'll just be me, my husband and our Basil Dog. But, that is my family now, and they happend to actually be with me this year, so its good. I'm sad none of our other friends will be around. I also am not so keen to subject myself to someone else's family gathering and have an out of touch with reality experience again like I did for Christmas in Scotland.

I must go find out where Basil Dog went, as she has a terrible habit of jumping on counters when not watched. She is but a puppy still.