So this is Christmas.

So this is Christmas. Or, as everyone around my house is calling it, my "last" Christmas. A little surreal, since that can't actually be -- I don't plan on dying anytime in the next 12 months. And I am such a homebody that no matter where I am in the world, there's a 99.9% chance that I would come home at least around the holidays, if not for the actual date. But I kind of like the special treatment, getting to do all the "special" jobs that my brother and I always fought about as kids and to this day, at the ages off 22 and 25, still have to take turns doing: setting up the creche, putting the angel at the top of the tree, deciding which church service to go to on Christmas Eve. And even though Christmas this year in the Marsh household has pretty much been by my design, something is slightly off.

The family traditions were all followed exactly, as, of course, they absolutely need to be. Egg nog was consumed at the tree decorating, pajamas were given on Christmas Eve. So that's not it. Maybe it's the realization that once you graduate college, you are crossed of a lot of extended family's gift lists. Bummer. But I don't really think that's it either. I did get everything I needed, everything I asked Santa for: a new digital camera and a sweet backpacking pack to take on my adventures. :) More than anything, I think that it's the fact this year I seem to be very sensitive to the situations of others at this time of year. I have friends all over the country and the world -- Bangkok, Israel, Tokyo -- who are not with their families this year. And with the impending move to a highly economically depressed neighborhood of Guatemala City, I can't help but feel like these motions that my family has been going on with for weeks now is somehow incredibly showy and terrible waste. And for the first time in my entire life, I feel guilty about having Christmas. And that, coupled with this tiny twinge of fear that this may, in fact, be my last Christmas as I know it, is making for a very weird mix of emotions, and subsequently a very abnormal Christmas. But hey, welcome to my life these days. :)

So on that note, Merry Christmahanakwanzukah. Hope your holidays are guilt and fear free. Well, except for the guilt of eating too many holiday goodies, and the fear of what that may do to your waistline. :)