5 Things I'll miss about Christmas back home

Christmas time in Madrid

     The year is winding down. The other professors and I are finishing up our classes and planning trips back home or elsewhere in Europe for the holidays. Ticket's back are ridiculously expensive this time of year so heading back to Florida for a week isn't an option. Instead I'm flying to Ireland to spend it with family there. Although I'm so excited to be back in Belfast drinking Guinness with my cousins and speaking English for a whole week, there are somethings I'm going to miss about being home for Christmas.

     1. Christmas Eve at Dads. Drinking too much wine, opening presents while Andrew and Dad play guitar together (Paul and I making fun of them the whole time), eating dinner and telling the same stories we told last year, and the year before, but laughing just as hard. Hayley and I talking about books or travelling and trying to have a real conversation before Andrew strikes a goofy pose from across the room and I spit up my drink.

     2. Midnight Irish coffee with Mom. Taking a shot of Jameson and Baileys with my Mom at midnight in our coffee while everyone tries to figure you sleeping arrangements. In 25 years this is the first time I won't be sleeping on someone's apartment floor or squeezed onto a couch with my brothers and sister snoring next to me. My Mom always made sure we were together.

     3. Christmas Morning. Seeing my Grandmother, a little smaller than last year but funnier than ever. The most upbeat, happy, amazing, intelligent woman I've ever met. She beat cancer last year and every Christmas I get to spend with her from now on won't be taken for granted.

     4. My Dad. Just my Dad. Walking around in his boxers in a Hawaiian shirt playing Christmas carols on his mandolin with glasses hanging from his collar and his hair in a cowlick in the back.

     5. The best dinner of the year. Hands down my favorite meal of the year. A couple of years ago Hayley, Paul, Andrew and I started going to a restaurant for Christmas dinner. We buy a couple bottles of wine and talk for hours. I never laugh that hard with anyone. It's the kind of laughing where you can't breathe and your sides hurt and you have tears running down your face. When I leave and walk out into the cold I feel flushed and exhausted and happy. All it takes is that one dinner to make everything okay. I'm 5 again and I'm with people that love me unconditionally and everything is a big ball of significance and meaning. For those couple hours we beat back the world and nothing can touch us.



     I miss my friends and family but I'm excited for what Christmas and the new year will bring. Merry Christmas to my new family in Spain, my family in Chicago, Northern Ireland, and Florida, have a great one guys.