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The Santa Fe Plaza at Christmas Time |
This year, I’m not going home for Christmas.
I’m missing the decorating of the Christmas tree; the curling up on a couch with my sibs sipping Mexican Hot Chocolate and cracking jokes; going to people’s houses, local restaurants, and community organizations for Las Posadas; having snowball fights, creating snowmen, and making snow angels; going to my favorite family's house for our yearly gift exchange and dinner; breaking open a piñata with mis primos; caroling on Canyon Road on Christmas Eve surrounded by lively folks, luminaries, and farolitos; and of course, eating copious amounts of food while playing games like King Elephant with my cousins for days on end.
Sigh.
This year, I’m staying in the East and I’ve got to admit, I imagined being overwhelmed by extreme agony and sadness at not being able to go home for Christmas. I mean, Christmas is my favorite Holiday and I can easily give three reasons why (though I promise there are at least 100 more):
1) I remind my siblings of Buddy the Elf.
2) When I was little, I used to want to grow up and be one of Santa’s Little Helpers. I'm being completely serious here by the way.
3) Then of course there’s the glorious incident of when my siblings found out that I didn’t believe in Santa Clause. Jajaja. The winter break of my first year in college, my family and I went to eat dinner at Hunan’s Chinese Restaurant in Santa Fe. While eating our sesame chicken and beef with broccoli, the question of how old we were when we stopped believing in Santa Clause arose. Looking up hesitantly and noticing my 12-year-old sister is not shocked by this revelation, I announce that I knew for sure when I was 9 and got a letter returned from Santa Clause. As I’m saying this, my 12-year-old sister looks at me completely flabbergasted and says she found a few years ago. I’m a little surprised at this point and say “Really? I’ve been pretending he’s real for you since Chicago?” She responds with something along the lines of: “Camila, Marissa and I knew, we just didn’t want to disappoint you. Antonio and I have been pretending ever sense then because we thought you still believed in him. We just thought… “we gotta keep the Holiday Spirit alive for Camila!’” Aw, what love.
Anyhow, this Christmas I’m going to be venturing to Poughkeepsie, New York to spend some time with my aunt, cousin, and pseudo nephew. I’m uber ecstatic because I get to be with my family, spend time with people who appreciate the spirit of Christmas, be a Holiday surprise for my pseudo nephew, and eat delicious food. Yippee!
Until then, I’m going to be reminiscing about Christmas, the Holiday Season, and and all the things that make me completely ecstatic in life because I'm in love with this time of year.
