I Now Have a Beard, So I'm Allowed To Write Like This...

Maybe it because I'm listening to the Garden State Soundtrack (which is the only cd which literally transports me to an exact location...a certain dorm room during my Freshman year of college) or maybe it's because my next few blogs will be heavy travel-blogs (in the next 3 weeks I'll be in 6 different cities), but I'm feeling the need to write a sentimental entry today.  So fair warning: if you're looking for something interesting in the next few hundred words, click this link.  If you can stomach some personal writing, keep reading...I dare you.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling homesick again.  No secret.  And to be honest, I was looking at Christmas being away from my family as the pinnacle of my homesickness.  I figured that the most family-oriented holiday of the year would lead me to a mass bone marrow-selling spree to buy a ticket back home.  While, a ticket back home for the holidays still sounds great...I'm not getting homesick enough to resort to such a drastic plan.  Male prostitution is still on the table, though.

Instead, Christmas is having the opposite effect.  Instead of making me miss my family, its making me feel more connected to them as ever.  Its amazing. 

As soon as I listen to Dido sing Christmas Day, I immediately smell my Christmastime home growing up...pine tree, oranges with cloves, Yankee Candles, etc.  I can sense my mother slaving away to bake us 23 different kinds of Christmas cookies, of which I only eat 6.  I can hear my dad begging us boys to help her because it would mean so much to her.  We'd come to help take the cookies out of the oven.

As soon as I step into a mall here, I hear more Christmas music and see the same decorations as back home.  This transports me to my local mall running through the stores to find crappy last-minute presents for my family.  I can remember splitting up with my brothers because we are all shopping for each other.  Or my parents taking me into GAP to see if Devin would wear a certain sweater that's on sale.

As soon as I see a house garishly decorated, it takes me to a somewhat cold, dry December morning with my dad yelling at Andrew to get his ass outside to help us with the manly outdoor decorating that needs to happen.  I can then see Devin's ass as he ascends to the uppermost reaches of our dieing Oak tree in the front yard to get the best wrapping of Christmas lights around the branches.  And finally, I can literally then see my dad's ass as he's bending over untangling last year's lights.  I guess I not doing much in this scenerio.

As soon as I put on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for my boys here, I can remember my own mother gleefully watching with us every Christmas special she can manage to find.  And I can see how much I enjoyed it when I was my boy's age, but then remembering how much of a struggle it has been over the last decade to sit through a tired Christmas show or made-for-TV movie.

I could go on...but my testicles have now officially retracted, and I'm now the proud owner of a nice new vagina.  Before I run to the store to get some tampons, diet pills, and a Driving for Dummies book, I'll wrap this touchy-feely stuff up. 

While being here, its easy to get a different perspective on things.  I've always appreciated my family (immediate and relative) and the traditions that we have.  But I'm seeing for the first time just how much these traditions will always be able to transcend time, distances, and experiences to bring me back to the most important part of my life.  So thank you, family.

*If you're up for some more reading...this is hilariously accurate.  And hilariously poignant for this blog...
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/01/11/120-taking-a-year-off/