Finding your own place at the Holiday table
As the holiday season began again in full force in 2023, I found myself thinking about what my holidays with both biological family and chosen family have meant to me over the decades of my lifetime. I have lived in five countries on three continents over the sixty plus years of my adventures in this wonderful and often hectic world. Perhaps unintentionally, I have become an unsettled settler. My husband and I have had similar journeys and now find ourselves in beautiful Catalunya. As the December holiday season begins, I find myself thinking about how immigrants adapt to and integrate the different traditions of their new community. Holidays are intensely personal, familial, and cultural events that are evocative on so many levels. Hence, I took some time to reflect.
I was born in the UK and, as a young person, was raised in South Africa. Christmas in South Africa was a very different event from that of my parents’ European roots. All the snowy images of Santa came to fruition in the middle of the very hot summer holidays. Snowmen and reindeers did not quite fit - But Santa did not seem turned off by the BBQ! It was the time of long hot holidays. Xmas, no school, swimming, freedom all seemed to go hand in hand.
When I returned to England, I was surprised that the weather was not like the Hallmark cards, the twinkle-dust was grey and sloppy, and it was cold. Initially I hated it and found it depressing - but it was my Xmas (with all the trimmings) for a number of years. The Brits have some traditions that took some getting used to. The smells of mince pies revolted me, Christmas pudding (you have to grow up with it to like it), stockings hung over very small coal fireplaces that Santa could get down and not get dirty, wearing paper crowns while pulling Christmas crackers over a very long and boozy lunch that was abruptly broken into by the ‘Queen’s Speech’ at 3pm. This was followed by tea and a snooze on the couch. After a few years, it became normal and a time of sharing. But the first ones were hard and I’ve never forgotten the smell of the sun and the BBQ
I moved to the US in my 20’s and discovered Thanksgiving (now my all-time favorite holiday). It was a bit weird: cranberry fruit sauce (that looked like jam) served with turkey, cooked pumpkins (didn’t we just see those on our doorsteps on Halloween?) to make sweet dessert pies. Then, lunch was abruptly stopped so people could watch “American Football” not ‘real’ English football (aka soccer). And I was never taught those stories of the pilgrims - was that a fairy tale like Santa and the reindeers? It was both fun and very foreign. (Football did beat the Queen’s Speech but lasted much longer). As a foreigner it was great and an adventure. But I felt very separate from my family and home. Initially, it took energy to embrace it. It was not mine. I could look in and enjoy but my experience was very different from those around the table.
Thanksgiving is followed by Black Friday, which I always confused with Easter’s Good Friday. This one is a day for discount shopping, which was spent (while recovering from Thanksgiving festivities) stocking up for Xmas. I have never understood nor liked this one - frantic shopping and crowds after a day of gratitude for having plenty? But the main thing that I felt was rather mystified and estranged.
So, what to do about Xmas in the US? Another turkey? (Please no!), What is eggnog anyway? Christmas trees with no snow? Masses of presents. Watching iconic American movies that I liked but were not my history…. And it was not even an official public holiday! ..After a few attempts of celebrating the American way, we went on vacation instead. Hawaii with Santa on a Surfboard will never leave my memory!
One year, we decided that our Jewish friends had the best solution and had a marvelous Chinese lunch followed by watching a movie. For a while, we were all over the map as we tried to personalize the season. It was usually fun and quite liberating to be able choose what to do. At the same time, we also felt separate from both our families and from the culture around us.
Over time, we developed a rhythm and our own community, making Xmas and Thanksgiving feel more ‘ours’. We did the turkey, had decoration parties, and tended to share the holidays with a more international group of friends. We were settled and at home with our own amalgam of tradition. It took a while to create it, but it worked. The process of owning our holiday outside of our home countries took time and an acceptance that the traditions around us were not those of our families. But we had the freedom to make the festivities our own.
When we came to Catalunya (with huge ignorance of the difference between living here and in the rest of Spain) we learned that Papa Noel was an immigrant too! He was busy establishing his place with the Tío (a pine log who gets fed lovingly for a couple of weeks until Xmas, before being beaten vigorously to encourage him to defecate small presents for the children). Again, it was fascinating, exotic, and so very different. One year, we were so enamored by the Caganer that my husband gave some as gifts to Japanese business colleagues. This really did not translate well across the continents!
Spanish people have the enormous capacity to continue with the festivities until the Kings from The Orient arrive on January 6th to distribute more presents. This happens when I’m way over the idea of Holidays, have imbibed too much and am into abstemious January! Fortunately, these Kings are much less boring than the English king and don’t interrupt lunch. Again, a fascinating holiday to participate in with great parades and much merriment. But the question of how to embrace it, beyond being an enthusiastic spectator remains. These are all family holidays, and our own family can feel like a long way away while our new friendships are still getting comfortable.
Having been here for a number of years, we find ourselves back in that comfortable position of having an amalgam of holidays. So, last Thursday, we celebrated Thanksgiving. The turkey remains, pumpkin pie was outvoted by persimmon pudding (remarkably like English Christmas pudding but with a fall tint), a gratitude tree (our invention), my sister visited from France, no football, soccer or king’s speeches, time with friends. We now celebrate Xmas dinner on the 24th thanks to our elective family (who arrived in Catalunya by way of Tenerife, Venezuela, France, Germany and California), who DON’T cook turkey or one of those puddings, enjoy the lights, and still put gifts under our Ficus tree which we exchange on the 25th. I’m way too impatient to wait for the Kings! Our routine is set, and it feels safe and cozy. It’s our ritual.
Everybody has their own take on the holiday season. Culturally, mine is from a loose Caucasian Christian tradition that moved around a lot. As an immigrant, we can invent how we choose to celebrate, will probably look from the outside to what is new and interesting in our new country, and will always have evocative memories of how the holiday season happened in our earlier countries of origin. We have the luxury of mixing up the smorgasbord of transitions, staying with what we know and like, or fully embracing the celebrations in our new country Life is a process of transitions. For international immigrants these can be profound. How does the holiday season affect your sense of place? What are you doing this year?
…Happy holidays to everybody!
Peace to the planet
