I’ll Cry If I Want To

I just had the second worst Christmas of my life. First one was in Orange County circa 2006. Second one was yesterday.

Both happen to be Christmases I spent away from my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother. Coincidence? I think not. My family is rad.

You know what else is rad? Christmas – Christmas in AMERICA!

And I’m not just talking about Christmas Day. The entire month of December tickles my soul to the core with complete joy, and is my favoritist season of all.

I love everything about it – the sound of Christmas music, houses adorned with twinkling red and green lights, holiday parties every day of the week, the smell of Christmas trees, children lined up to see Santa Claus. I even take pleasure in Christmas shopping and the pressure to find the perfect gifts, frantically slaving away on homemade cards and scrapbooks. Cleaning my kitchen that’s covered in powdered sugar because of the 10 batches of puppy chow I’ve just made. The whole Christmas energy fills my heart like nothing else.

My sister and I board a plane in LA every year to fly home to Olympia, Washington. For a week or so, we sit around and talk and laugh, enjoy mom’s home-cooking, check out dad’s mini Christmas village to see what new pieces he collected that year, we go to mass at St. Mike’s church, sing Christmas carols, drive around looking at Christmas lights, hang out with our cousins, visit hometown friends, I get to sleep in my old room, we play cards and board games and video games, watch movies. My sister and I pull an all-nighter every Christmas Eve for no reason at all but to be merry and be sisters.

This year, I spent Christmas in tears. I cried my FACE off like a wittle baby.

I don’t wanna trash talk the way Christmas is done here in Vietnam. 1) Buddhism is the most common religion here, so Christmas isn’t much celebrated, and 2) the most festive time in this country is lunar new year’s, and it’s a blow-out occasion.

Christmas here is not the merry, giving season it is in the States. Sure, the streets are decorated with lights, and families get together to eat a nice meal. But then afterwards, it appears that everyone between 18 and 40 hits the clubs. As in nightclubs. As in drinking whiskey and cognac and raving to techno music all night. No presents under the Christmas tree, in fact, most houses don’t have a tree at all.

Last week, I gave a box of chocolate truffles to a 29-year-old Catholic girl in Nha Trang, and she told me it was the first time she’d EVER received a Christmas gift!

Anyway, back to my Christmas cryfest. I’m in Saigon. I’m missing my family. Skinny Asian Santa Clauses (while cute) just aren’t doin’ it for me. It feels like 100 degrees outside. I wanna hear holiday music that isn’t sung by ABBA (don’t get me wrong, I freaking love ABBA, but I can only listen to their perfectly harmonized “Happy New Year” so many times). I wanna feel the Christmas spirit. And all anyone wants to do is go clubbing.

Pictured here is me on Christmas Eve after a night with my cousins filled with whiskey shots and techno-thumping at Oscar’s 12 nightclub. It paints a pretty accurate picture of how I felt most of the evening.

This was the end of a night that started with taxi frustrations, miscommunication (and in some cases, no communication at all) from my relatives on where I was supposed to meet them. I was left wandering around crowded streets like a lost idiot, and all the food was gone by the time I arrived. All this was two hours in the making. I showed up exhausted and hungry, with a brave, smiley facade that lasted about two seconds.

As soon as I sat down, my face exPLOded with projectile tears and snot.

My cousin’s 3-year-old put a holiday hat on my head and my uncle quickly got me a beer. Here’s what was left of my face after I wiped away the tears and put on my FML smile.

I was being a huge crybaby, I realize. But this was the first (and hopefully the only) bout of homesickness I’d ever felt since I left the States. I missed my family and I missed American Christmas. I was gonna cry if I wanted to. Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The cryfest carried through to Christmas Day. First thing I did when I woke up was Skype with my family back home. And then with my dear friend Chandra in San Diego. I compleeeeetely lost it. But I got it out of my system (mostly) and spent hours talking with Chandra, who turned out to be my Christmas angel (love you!). Had a delicious crab meal with the family I’m staying with. Then they all took off for a two-day church thing, while I stayed behind by myself, laid in bed, and watched “Love Actually.” I’ve seen the movie about 200 times, and it gets me every. Single. Time. It was exactly what I needed. I politely declined my cousin’s invitation to go to Club Gossip, and stayed home alone all Christmas night.

With what little Christmas spirit I was able to muster up, I did find some silver lining.

Even though it was a torturous series of mishaps to get there, I got to spend Christmas Eve with my relatives in Saigon. Uncle Binh, Aunt Loan, Uncle Hai, cousin Ngoc Anh & her husband Tuan, cousin Tram, Hoang & the adorable girl nicknamed Kit Ty.

In the mis- and non-communication of Christmas Eve that left me in tears, I had accidentally ended up at Caravelle for about an hour, one of Saigon’s finest hotels. And it was bursting at the seams with Christmas lights and music.

Santa was even there, so I joined him on the sleigh for some photos. He hit on me and insisted I take his phone number since he wasn’t allowed to use his phone on the job. Santa told me his real name is Phuc, and even though it’s pronounced “fuke,” I found tremendous humor in entering his name in my phone as “PHUC SANTA.” Ho ho ho!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. And even though mine will go down in Traveling Thy history as a bummer of a day, it was a good reminder that “There’s no place like home.”