Duality has recently become a recurring theme in my life. There seem to always be two ways of looking at things; two distinct views that I take on things; two lives that I lead.
I’ve even started serving two entrees when entertaining.
The recent holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas have also fallen victim to the pattern as well. For the former, I celebrated twice: once with a large and boisterous group of volunteers, and the other with a few close friends, in a more intimate setting.
Christmas turned out to be the same way for me, celebrated twice, in two separate locations, with two separate subsets of my family. The first celebration, on the day, brought those volunteers closest to me geographically together for a celebration of secular Christmas. We played rummy and poker (we casually kept score for the former, and bet using various chocolates for the latter), watched the seasonal films A Charlie Brown Christmas and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and – as is quickly becoming standard at my residence – ate our weight in baked goods and savoury foods. We hiked on Boxing Day, and then we parted ways the next morning. It was an unconventional Christmas (and the first that my friends had spent away from home), but it was sufficient for us.
The next Christmas, celebrated on the 27th with Host Family 2.0, took place back in my old site. I brought presents that my parents (the biological ones) had sent over – including baby clothes, chocolates, Craisins, perfume, a Picadilly notebook and some requisite Michigan apparel – and was in return gifted with vegetables from the garden (some young turnips, onions and sweet peppers), fresh olive oil, amlou (a sugary mix of argan oil and almonds), aggurn ijjan (homemade seasoned flour) and a few other odds and ends to make my kitchen smell more… authentic.
We ate couscous (an interesting Christmas meal, I must say), fruit and French-style cake for dessert. I explained who Santa Claus is (though in my version of the story, he asks God each year which children helped their parents at home and studied hard, and which children did not), why we put a tree inside the house, and how to eat cake in the western style, with individual plates and silverware.
Interesting Cake Moment: With the cake on the table, Counterpart turned things over to me for the dishing out. He asks, “how do we do this?,” and I reply with, “the normal way.”
After a few more rounds of, “but how do we do this?” and “how else do you think? You eat it!”, I finally realized that the question was not how do we eat this, but rather, how do you guys eat this? The answer is that everyone gets their own slice of the cake, served on their own plate, and eaten with their own fork.
That, for Host Family 2.0, was novel, intriguing and moderately objectionable. They said that it felt like it wasn’t friendly, like they weren’t sharing the cake.
C’est la culture.
Anyhow, after explanations of old men that break into your house while you’re sleeping (that’s what he does, right?), eating cake in the most-unfriendly way possible and the exchange of gifts, it was time for a dance party.
Wait, what?
An old, tinny speaker was brought out from behind a bookshelf, hooked up to a small CD player, and a scratched CD of western music – on this occasion, Mariah Carey’s Music Box- was blasted at full volume.
And to five octaves of Mariah Carey’s voice, we danced the night away.
Two Thanksgivings and two Christmases later, I’m spent. I’m ready for 2011 (which I will continue to pronounce two thousand eleven until further notice) and whatever she will bring — like our Close of Service, or COS, that my stage-mates and I will celebrate in precisely four months: 29 April 2011. Let the countdown begin!
