The 3 Month Holiday Season

The first year, I was stunned.  And a bit peeved.  I thought, how dare they start pushing Christmas before I had even made a definitive decision on what I was going to be for Halloween.  I snapped pictures of their transgressions and posted them to proove that the candy and decorations were indeed overtaking us in early-October.  I wrote captions for said pictures that lamented the loss of Halloween, and Thanksgiving.  That first year I was unabashedly vocal about the fact that we needed to celebrate one holiday at a time.  Even when living abroad. Maybe especially because I was living abroad.

I questioned why they couldn't simply enjoy the season they were in and not rush so quickly into the next.  Hadn't they learned to live in the moment?  Hadn't they learned to savor the present? But then I stopped for a minute. And I looked at it from their point of view, and not through my own very American eyes.

We were living in Chile at this time.  So I looked up the holiday's in Chile.  And I found that their HUGE  holiday is Dieciocho (it includes Fiestas Patrias, Navy Day and oh so many parties),  Not only does it take over September but it is also their last major holiday before Christmas.  Because as much as they are starting to embrace Halloween, it still isn't an actual holiday. And it's safe to assume that Thanksgiving will never be a celebrated there (except by expats).  And through my indignation,  I realized that they weren't rushing anything...they were simply starting to celebrate the next holiday on the calendar.  I was taking their early Christmas decorating too personally.  I was a new expat.  I took everything too personally.  I was away from my family, my friends, and my traditions for the first time.  It was less about the fact that the decorations were out before the turkey was dressed, and more about the fact that by putting the decorations out so early they were prolonging my sadness and my feelings of emptiness of spending the holidays away from home (or in our case, at home) for the first time ever.

By the next year, I expected it.  And though I didn't embrace it, I only mentioned it once (or maybe twice) to family and friends.  Because no matter how many years I am an expat, it will always be weird to see Santa lining my shopping aisles before The Great Pumpkin even made an appearance.  But, by this time, I was prepared and, in reality, I was having a harder time wrapping my head around the fact that summer was bearing down on us again - in October - than I was that the trees were up at the mall.

This year will be our fourth consecutive holiday season abroad.  And even though we are now in Europe, and not South America , it all seems to be working the same.  A shelf of Christmas chocolates appeared in with the paltry offering of Halloween candy.  And a Santa hat was spied amid the Halloween costumes.  At this point it doesn't shock me.  It doesn't make me want to post pictures of their transgressions and their rushing head first into the end of the year.  Actually, it was welcome.  It helped pad out the offerings because this country didn't really  have a lot to offer in the candy/costume department either.

And I think I have finally embraced the fact that the holiday season lasts 3 months, not 3 weeks, because I started decorating last weekend.  Yep, a full two weeks before Thanksgiving will happen back in the U.S..  I say back home because it won;t happen here.  Thursday is just another day here in Prague.  The girls will go to school, B will be  on a trip in another country and I will make any old dinner, just like every other night.  There will be no family, there will be no friends, and there will be no day off the next day.  Don't get me wrong, even after four years, it still makes me a bit wistful.  It makes me miss home  just a smidge more than I do any other day of the year.  But I have embraced the fact that you just have to go with the flow when you are an expat.  Even if that means that you are decorating Christmas trees only days after taking the Halloween decorations down. On the bright side, it gives me a few weeks longer to enjoy the beauty of the holiday season.