Weihnachten

For me, this Thanksgiving was the first holiday in a long, long time that didn't have bittersweet overtones. It was just... sweet. Family and turkey and epic Scrabble games and picking names for our Christmas exchange. No overseas phone calls to my family, no piecing together my own traditions from available local resources, no feelings of being spread uncomfortably and transatlantically thin.

Holidays were hard for me in Germany - on the one hand, I enjoyed the amazing hospitality of countless families who opened up their homes to a near-stranger on a family occasion. But on the other hand, holidays are about traditions, and mine were playing themselves out, without me, half a world away. My mom sent a family photo with a hand-lettered sign where I would have stood. "We miss you, Jess!" with a stick figure of a girl. In four years, that was the closest I got to spending Christmas with my family.

I honestly doubted that there was going to be anything tugging on my heart when holiday time rolled around this year. I hadn't gotten so attached to Advents and Christmases in Germany that I'd feel the loss once I was back home again, had I?

I was unprepared for the rush of feelings that came to me as I pulled out my German hymnal tonight and began humming my way through German Christmas. Suddenly, there I was at Angelika's, learning how to light real candles on a Christmas tree without burning down the house. And at Clemens's, trying to get them to understand that I wasn't capable of sight-singing unfamiliar and complicated hymns in four-part harmony. And at Jasmin's, trying desperately to understand her grandfather's rural vernacular.

So it's not all bittersweet, I guess. There are these sweet memories too... part of my forever Christmases.

As I sit in front of a crackling fire and our table-top decorated tree, though, I'm glad to be home.