Wesolych Świąt - Happy Xstmas

I believe this is like 13th or 14th Christmas I spend in USA ...

Not a big thing of course but see I am Polish so one would think I am "miserable" during Christmas in foreign land. This is a time of increase number of suicides ... people who are truly miserable somehow can't get enough alcohol or drugs to get through the Christmas season and before you know it, they are the new members of the exclusive morgue club.

So any chance I will be? Well, not. Sorry to disappoint you my dear insurance company (if I do end my life by myself, you would not have to pay that 100,000 dollars in life insurance and keep all the monthly payments ... [it is kind of weird to think that there is at least one entity - insurance company - that would be happy if you committed a suicide :-)])

I never forget how worry my mother and I guess sister too were during my first Christmas season abroad ... they called and sounded very concerned. They did not know how lucky I was to meet good American family who, in addition to giving me employment, which in the end gave me a realistic chance to make it here, gave me warm family feeling and opportunity to be around people who cared about me as a human being.

Good think they did not think of themselves as “better”, even though they had about literally 1 million times the income I had and even their dogs came from better blood than I did ... You know, they did sort of the same thing if some would indeed actually invite the beggar Romanians from the Central Railroad station in Poland to the Christmas Eve meal ("Wigilia") ... instead of just nicely and comfortably leaving empty dish … And by the way, we will see the American family this Christmas again. They became good friends of ours …

But times change, poor people - me - become a bit less poor and suddenly instead of just worrying about some people to spend the Christmas with, people are worrying about the quality of the season celebrations ... Maslow truly was correct in his theories.

This Christmas we will spend with my friend Darryl and his wife Masha from Ukraine with their kids ... and we will speak English and talk about Jesus’ birthday, as even though I think Jesus was just a man (good one) I do not want to stop the Christians from enjoying their holidays and want to introduce my kids to this concept.

We will talk about families, Christmas traditions, Mikolaj (Santa Clause), love will be in the air, we will talk to my mother on the phone ... we make a fire in the chimney, play some Christmas carols on the piano or listen to some on the radio ... Maria will cook some good Ukrainian meals, including her version of “goląbki” (cabbage rolls with beef and rice inside them), Juli will cook fish (although not carp) and pierogi (and not by hand but even the ‘good Polish wives’ do not do pierogies by hand anymore .. got “lazy I guess?:-)) Kids will play with Elizabeth and her little brother, Darryl’s and Maria’s kids.

It will be nice, and maybe they will ask about Christmas in Poland under communism, like those people who gave me warm family Christmas during my first years in USA ... I remember their stories of their own experiences in communist Poland during their trips there (They are rich people, some were there on business travels). They were very surprised that people were stealing toilet paper from trains when they traveled in Poland … (I did not tell them it was most likely my mother and her friends who stole it ... they would not understand ... just like most young people in Poland already forgot what life under communism was ....) Would any normal person steal toilet paper? Just because I lived in not normal country for 35 years does not mean somehow those who did not are 'worse' than me ... and close minded.

There is a sea of interesting things to get to know about Christmas in USA. In contrary to stereotypes about Americans simply only shopping during the holiday season, one should note that they cook special cookies sometimes keeping doe for days and following special rules, making ginger houses and having special times when the kids are allowed to pick the candies form it, leaving letter and milk and cookies to Santa by the chimney ... as he is of course tired of bringing the gifts (and of course Santa writes back to the kids ....which they can witness themselves next day by reading what he wrote on the paper), self-criticism of their shopping attitudes and openness to find out about any other tradition they can pick and carry during Christmas, even if that will be just one Christmas) They go to church, they eat special dinner, they look for the first star … and of course there are “special department lunches” and Christmas Work Parties.

So Merry Christmas, as my boss today said during our "special department lunch" in near by restaurant. I guess everyone knew that the official name of the lunch was just “politically correct” as many did not hesitates with greetings "Marry Christmas so and so" ... but then again, this is my work, somewhat liberal ... can't speak for the entire country ... the size of Europe and part of Asia combined ... I guess we would not want to be called for Honokaa Party if it just happened that our boss was a Jew ... and then again, the way it is respects whoever does not want to participate but people inside may choose the greetings the way they want … that’s what happens in diverse country where not 99% of the people are white, catholic and lived behind a wall for the last 35 years with little ability or permission to travel and stick the nose out of their environment.

But the best are the parties. This is not the time of my students years when I was poor and my English was poorer. This is time of free drinks and lots of fun with food and during mingling among the people. This is a sort of a skill that I learned the hard way through my 14 years in USA. People like comfort. Foreign things, be it people or someone speaking of controversial topics make them uncomfortable. People do not like change nor being force to feel uncomfortable against their will. You may be lucky to meet “cultural” person on some party and bush this and that with that person for a few hours … But guess what, unless he/she is really “cultural” (translation for other people “weird” or “geek”) even that person gets tired of that after a while during the same party.

Mingling and “finding” yourself is not something natural and some people, of the same nationality, never learn and are never comfortable. Nothing wrong with that! Just you should know it ain’t the crowd that is the obstacle.

And what a crowd it was during Juli's work Christmas party

Shhh, don’t tell Juli, there are some hot girls working for my wife’s company!... and they drink like Polish people!!! (Actually I already told her and said that if we would ever get a divorce, I have some new candidates … to which she responded with a sad face …sign I should not “joke” anymore.)

During the party, I was introduced to a girl from England ... Eva I think? She has been all over the place because her parents moved. She lived in South Africa, South USA [which may as well be a different country from north USA], Canada, and Europe. She did not even have much of an accent (and, yes, as I was saying there are lots of hot girls in Juli's work ... :-))

It was nice to talk to her because she understood ... we both agree how rich our lives are thanks to the diversity of lives we have seen and been introduced to ... we may not "belong" to any 100% but it is that not belonging that makes us happy ... no, more than that, makes us strong and appreciative of the opportunity to be able to be "outside" of things and to see things through a perspective of environment, culture, structure, etc. and not being blinded by being "inside" things ...

That's I guess why I see things in much broader light and from broader prospective - Carp (fish) is now a fish of necessity for mostly poor Polish people in addition to being Christmas meal tradition ... and good breakfast ... peasant culture tradition where breakfast was important to gain strength for physical work in the field ... Your country tradition, in other words, is nothing but just one of many, product of its own environment, culture and often semi-temporary culture that resulted from semi-temp historic times ... Most likely in 50 years, people in Poland will look at carp the same way American do ... as a "bottom feeder" ... far down the line of fish worthy of dinner plate.

But ironically, it just makes you appreciate the carp even more ... but you life will not end nor you have to be unhappy if you do not get to eat one this Christmas...

Merry Christmas

WOW, I sure write a lot …
Tell you a secret, my biggest challenge in school is to shorten the papers I write!