Holiday Season 2018

Thanksgiving

            Thanksgiving, for me, has been the one holiday since I was a freshman in HS that most of my mom's 5 siblings were able to gather together at my great-aunt's house. Even before that, Thanksgiving has always been a special holiday of gathering with loved ones and enjoying each other's company and eating delicious food. In fact, I have a super special plate that my cousin on dad's side gifted me for Christmas 2017 that has my Dad's mom's handwriting of her recipe for her Cranberry Salad- a well-loved tradition on that side of my family.

           I'm not a real big fan of "Black Friday shopping," and never really have been a fan. Especially after working in retail for 4 years of college and 5 years after that. Some of the stories I could tell about people's behavior toward people in retail and other service industry jobs. Yeesh! It costs absolutely nothing to be kind to one another. I went shopping on that infamous Friday one time while in college, and I was in and out of 4 stores before 7am with all the remaining gifts I had needed to buy. It was nice to be shopping in a college town for that purpose. Ha! I am usually a super early present buyer and have most of my shopping done by October.

         Thanksgiving 2016 and Thanksgiving 2017, R was overseas for work, so we weren't able to celebrate together. Thanksgiving 2018 meant we were together, which was amazing! It also meant we were 7-10 time zones away from loved ones back stateside (I say that, because we have relatives in each of the 4 time zones of Mainland USA). I remember it being an odd feeling, and yet at the same time, a sense of adventure for this new part of our life.

           A friend here invited about 30 of us to have a "Friendsgiving," so we moved several patio tables and chairs together and created a super long banquet style table. It was super fun! It was potluck style, so we all brought something. Several people started a game of football and we were able to chat with each other. It was a great day!

Christmas

          A lot of people traveled out of the country for this holiday, so our housing area was pretty quiet. We were invited to share in the holiday meal with some friends we have made, which was fabulous. Then we were able to Skype chat with my mom and later that day with R's family. I was able to call and chat with my dad as well. Internet speeds kept getting a bit wonky, so that was entertaining, but it was nice to be able to chat with family.

          An interesting side note of living here in Kuwait: there are holiday decorations everywhere and Santa makes appearances! I was not expecting that, but was surprised. There are also several holiday bazaars for gift shopping and the European embassies (or their affiliated ladies groups) host Christmas markets. We were able to go to one market hosted by the German-speaking Ladies of Kuwait held at the German Ambassador's house one afternoon.