The Holidays

For most people, Christmas is a time to get and give lots of gifts.  I've never really liked the commercialism of the holidays, and I found that to be even more true celebrating in the Netherlands.  Christmas for me should be about 2 things: 1) Christ coming to Earth and 2) family time.  And here in the Netherlands it is even more so about those things.  The Dutch don't exchange gifts on Christmas, so the holiday is so much about spending time with family.  Therefore, being away from mine was hard; but even more than that, it just never really felt like Christmas.  My teammates and I laid around a watched movies all day December 25.  It was fun and so relaxing after our trip to Berlin, but it really did not feel like Christmas.

New Year's, while fun, was a night of reflection for me--thinking about the past year, about the coming year.  What has changed since last New Year's Eve?  What will change this year?  What new challenges will arise and how will I deal with them?  What do I want to be different in a year's time?  There were so many questions racing through my mind that it was hard to celebrate.

So Christmas and New Years was very different for me this year.  They were quite enjoyable, just not like typical holidays.  But the highlight for me was definitely getting to Google Chat with my entire family, spanning 3 countries, 4 time zones, 5 locations, and 16 hours of time difference!  Somehow, we managed to get all 8 of us on the call ON Christmas day!  See the proof below: