How Christmas Unites Us: Second Edition

I've been avoiding Christmas this year. It's for my own good. I miss my grandparents, my parents, my sister, my bros, my aunts and uncles...my friends. I only arrived in Phnom Penh eight weeks ago so while I have new friends here, I'm inherently and undeniably new...and this does not help when thoughts of previous Christmases come to mind.

Christmas in North America is surrounded by traditions which don't apply to me. I grew up without the lights, the cold weather, the Santa myth, the holiday parties, and the extravaganza of commercialism and the related gift giving complications. My Christmases were simpler. But this Christmas, I'm not around any family or any close friends. And as such, I'm avoiding Christmas. I find solace in the knowledge that this arrangement isn't permanent. I'll spend Christmases with my family in the future and I look forward to having great friends here next year here in Phnom Penh. Nothing is permanent in the global nomadic life, nothing is for sure, and everything is flexible (which drives even the most die-hard global nomad crazy).

Still, I can't completely ignore Christmas. I find myself thinking about expectations. Christmas is shrouded in expectations and anticipation, a buildup to a day of community and happiness. I'm not building my expectations around Christmas. I'm building expectations around other things, such as creating community here, Southern Sudanese independence, moving into my first apartment and hanging art on my bare white walls, hosting my family in May (the icing on the cake!), speaking Khmer with my partner (who speak precious little English), and learning to find and experience joy and peace in new places. Perhaps less concrete, perhaps less measurable, but I live in constant expectation for these moments, in permanent reverence in our flexible and irreverent world. In our global nomadic world, it's impossible to pin our happiness to one thing or even in tradition. We learn to expect and accept odd blessings from strange places.

And so we are united by our desire to find community. But community isn't linked to a date or a holiday but a lifestyle of open hearts and minds.