The 10th Christmas
Ten Thanksgivings. Nine Christmases. That is a lot of holidays to spend without family. It spans a young child becoming a teen or a teen becoming a young adult. Ten Thanksgivings without grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins equals a decade of memories not made. Nine Christmas’s apart is not a frivolous moment in time, but instead it represents a depth of understanding and experience. This is what our lives of living overseas has cost. 8 of those in Indonesia, and the latter in Lebanon. Those holidays have stretched us, as they have a way of highlighting choices made, unimaginable distance, and our unavailability. Even. To. Our. Children. It is rather ironic that on this tenth Christmas holiday we are flying to the USA. One would think that with a national pandemic threatening to undo our fragile world, and clear advice to not gather that this would be the one holiday that we would dutifully stay. But no. Crazy as it feels, the need to be present in our 15- and 17-year old’s liv