If asked for my favorite holiday, my usual response is Armistice Day. But, between you and me it is really Christmas. We are in India for 3 years, and our plan for the next 2 years is to be in the US for Christmas. My goal for this year is to make it as memorable as possible as "That one year we had Christmas in India". We put up decorations in early December and have been listening to Christmas songs all month. There is something about old Bing Crosby renditions of favorite songs to put us in the holiday spirit.
For the past 15 years I have strongly preferred to go absolutely nowhere on Christmas. The past 6 years I went no further than the street that we lived on to talk to friends and watch all the kids play with their new toys. This is probably a strong counter-reaction to spending each Christmas day for my first 18 years traveling to visit relatives. For this reason, I don't have a strong desire to travel for Christmas, instead prefering to stay right here in Chennai and take every opportunity to make vivid memories of that one Christmas we spent in India.
The opportunities started in earnest on Saturday at the church Christmas Party. Amy and two other expat women had been asked to plan the party. They didn't have a good idea of what would be acceptable, but another member showed up at the planning meeting and outlined an hours long program of talks and skits and songs. They rejected that but ended up in conflict about just what should be done. In the end, the three of them decided to plot their own course. After much stress the party ended up being a very big hit with everyone and Amy, Paula and Teresa received many compliments, even from the few who had proclaimed disaster because they deviated from tradition.
Christmas Song and Dance by the Young Men and Young Women. My job at church is to work with the young men and these brave 4 volunteered to do a song and dance number with 4 young women. They practiced for several hours. Not something you would see back in the US.
The next day after church we went over to friends for dinner and to decorate cookies. We had so much fun talking and playing games that we never finished the cookies, instead putting them in a container and taking them home. We were fortunate to have done that because we had plenty of snacks when the carolers showed up at 10:00 PM.
The next day we fulfilled one of Abby's most repeated requests: "Daddy, can we just go eat at the Marriott instead?" She was very happy. Dad was happy that they didn't end up charging $22.50 for each of us, letting Max eat free and charging Abby half price. Abby was very happy.
The big day finally arrived. Some packages with gifts are still out there somewhere making their way to us, but we had plenty and in the end I am pretty sure this will be a Christmas that we will remember for a lifetime.
