Blogging On: Of Thanksgivings Past
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| Image by David Mark (Pixabay) |
Well, it's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2019, the fifth observance of the holiday that I spend with other folks instead of my immediate (or even extended) family. Mom died in the summer of 2015, five months before the holiday season of that year. I cut all relations with my older half-sister as a result of long-standing resentments that had been building for decades, but especially after Mom and I discovered what she had in mind for the "after-Mom-died" phase in both our lives, so I have not observed any holidays with my closest blood relation since the Fourth of July of '15. And most of my surviving cousins on both sides of my family live in Colombia, so I can't easily get together with them for the holidays.
Thankfully, I have not spent many of the major holidays alone since Mom's death; the only special day that I didn't have company after July 19, 2015 was Christmas Eve of that year, and even then my significant other more than made up for it because she spent most of the time between December 27 and New Year's Day of 2016 in Miami with me. So the only disappointment that I had during my first holiday season without my mother was when some neighbors that I thought were my friends sided with my half-sister and left me to my own devices on December 24 and 25 - even though one of them had called me to say that her son would drop by with a plate of food from their Christmas dinner for me.
While my mom was alive, though, we were basically inseparable; Mom never really wanted me to move out of her house after I turned 18. She was not the kind of parent who had the "you're 18 (or 21) now; it's time for you to go off on your own"ethos. Mom did not want to live alone in her old age, but most importantly, she did not want to share a house with her older child, either. Mom loved my half-sister, but she could not live under the same roof with her; she tried doing that three times during V.'s adult life, and the only time that it was semi-successful was when we lived in Bogota and both of them had active social lives. Their temperaments, housekeeping styles, TV preferences, and even eating habits were so different that they were inherently incompatible.
I, on the other hand, tended to take after Mom in most respects, which is why Mom was so reluctant to allow me to leave home as long as she lived. The one time that I almost left home, which was some 15 years ago, Mom was unhappy with the idea and made sure that I knew it. She didn't exactly say "You can't go; I forbid it," but she told me that I was being selfish and not thinking of the long-term consequences to both of us. It was on this occasion, back in February of 2004, that I learned how much my mom dreaded living with V. And because of that, I ended my relationship with Junie, who did pass away in December of 2006, a little over two years after she suggested that I leave Miami and move to the Tampa area and live with her there instead.
Anyway, the point of all that somewhat complicated backstory is that from the time that Mom and I first arrived in Miami in 1972 after living for six years abroad till her death four years ago, we only spent one Thanksgiving away from each other.
That was when I was in Sevilla (Seville), Spain, where I was participating in the College Consortium for International Studies (CCIS) Progam's Semester in Spain study-abroad program. Along with 42 other American students from various colleges and universities across the U.S., I spent 88 days in Seville studying the language and taking courses on Spanish history and government. I spent two holidays in Andalusia: Columbus Day (which is known as Dia de la Raza in Spain) and Thanksgiving. (Due to a mistake in the original class schedule that CCIS students received in their orientation paperwork, I almost spent Christmas of 1988 in Seville; when the staff at the CCIS Center informed us that classes would let out before December 18 and not after New Year's on 1989, most of us rushed to the Iberia office in downtown Seville to change our flight dates so we could be home by Christmas.)
Here is the column that I wrote in Seville not long after Thanksgiving 1988. I co-wrote it with another participant in the Semester in Spain Program, Michelle Kirby, and mailed it back to Miami via Special Delivery/Air Mail, hoping it would reach Miami-Dade Community College - South Campus in time to be published in the last issue of the student paper before the semester ended. Alas, it arrived there several days after my return to the States and was published a few months after the fact.
We're not quite ready to go home yet
Written in December 1988, published March 2, 1989)
Alex Diaz-Granados
Columnist
SEVILLE, Spain (CCIS Program)
The winter holiday season has arrived and here in Seville the 42 students participating in the CCIS Semester in Spain program are looking beyond the upcoming final exams and planning their return home or further European travel.
Already, they have celebrated Thanksgiving, traditionally a very homey holiday, truly away from home as they are 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the group celebrated a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, prepared by Italian chefs at the three-star restaurant Carlino. The meal, judging by the students' comments, was psychologically, if not gastronomically, successful.
"The group really came together," said Sandra Langlois, a freshman from Miami-Dade's South Campus. "It was really special for me because I am French, and it was my first American Thanksgiving. I really got the true feeling of the tradition of the holiday -- togetherness."
Now, a few weeks later, students' thoughts are geared to either further travel throughout the holiday or their homecoming.
Melissa Miller, a senior from Lake Forest College in Chicago, said, "I'll be spending the holidays in Vienna, Austria, so I'll be sure to have a white Christmas, and I won't be alone because I'm traveling with a bunch of friends."
However, the majority of the participants in the program are ready to go home -- some more than others.
"I'm ready to go home," said Bob Holzweiss, a junior from St. Bonaventure College in New York State. "I've been here 12 weeks, and that's enough."
"I miss the luxuries of home -- convenience stores and fast food joints -- and also my car, my family and friends," said Ingrid Gottlieb, a student from Broward Community College. "And I miss my boyfriend."
Others, such as Wendy Page, a sophomore from South Campus, decided to stay for the Spring Term.
"Three months is just not enough time for me to get a full taste of the culture and lifestyle that Seville has to offer," she said.
And although he's leaving at the end of the semester, Fairfield University's Mike Boucher agreed.
"A lot of good things have happened here in terms of self-discovery, friendship, independence, and sense of perspective, and I don't think I'm ready to go home."Also contributing to this column is Michelle Kirby, foreign correspondent for Beacon, North Adams State College, Mass. and Mainsheet, Cape Cod CC's student newspaper.
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