Last Post Of The Year

It's New Year's Eve. Kids are in bed and G's gone out to spend New Year's Eve with some Deaf folks here. I think there will be fireworks over the river so that will be enjoyable. Here, they put up trees for New Year's as we do for Christmas. Stores and malls have winter holiday decorations just like the States. They've incorporated Santa Claus into their celebration and at first, I thought they were copying the Western countries without realizing the background from which Santa Claus came. (Auto correct on my computer keeps wanting to change "Claus" to "clause.")

Let me pause here a minute and explain something. I'm a bit ethnocentric. Or maybe a lot. I have a tendency to think that everything in our culture and all our traditions originated in America or at least in Europe. When I see something from our culture overseas, I think they are copying us. There are far more ancient cultures than the American culture and more stuff has been around before America was discovered in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Like Santa Claus.

Santa Claus originated from an actual, bona fide, real life person in history. This guy was a Greek Orthodox bishop, Nicholas (later elevated to sainthood), who lived in the 4th century. Guess where he was born and where he was bishop. In the area known as the modern-day country that I live in.

Who's copying whom? Apparently the St. Nicholas tradition is not unique to Western culture; it lives on in many cultures from Argentina to Palestine. My ethnocentrism has a dent in it. Good. Very good.

I won't leave you hanging about how Santa Claus came to be. Here's a great website: www.stnicholascenter.org.

Anyway, our Christmas was nice and quiet. We opened presents and enjoyed our presents all morning long. I cooked a couple of dishes and we went over to another family's home for potluck Christmas dinner.

You probably know that the majority religion here forbids pork. This is truly a cosmopolitan city so there are some stores that sell pork and they are mainly European chains. There is a single pork butcher in this entire city of 16 million. He's a Greek in his 60s and the government will not allow him to train someone to take his place. Apparently there are some Greeks who live down the coast and they raise pigs - oh, the horror! Sorry, that was sarcasm. Forgive me.

So, this European store had one hunk of ham for a whopping $86. The wife from the other family and I nearly choked. Then we discussed it. We decided it was only once a year and worth it for Christmas. We asked for the ham to be cut down and it cost $65. Sixty. five. dollars. For a one big slice of pig weighing about a pound or so.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed the pig! Oink! We also had some turkey on the side and we basically ate a Thanksgiving meal with mac 'n cheese, green beans, sweet potatoes, pecan pie, and pumpkin custard. And no, I didn't make the pie this time so pie-crust-rolling remains as the one occasion per year, a quota I have already met at Thanksgiving, thank you very much.

Yesterday, I got to celebrate New Year's somewhat. My language teacher invited me to her secret club. Women here form cliques and they meet once a month, taking turns hosting brunch and they all dress up really nice in suits and dresses. I think some may just meet in cafes. These groups are tight and closed to any newcomers. It can be difficult to break into. Two women formed my language teacher's group and one of them live across the street from me. The other lives just outside the city. She was always kind of distant towards me and yesterday, she finally warmed up to me, held baby DB for a few minutes, and invited me to her home when she hosts the group at her turn. Whoa. I mean, whoa. I'm making inroads...

So, anyway, since it was just the day before New Year's Eve, they wanted to celebrate. They got matching shirts and tights and hats. We were required to wear denim skirts. The shirts were bright, royal blue and so were the tights. The hats were tiny red fedora-style with netting and feathers, perched on the side of our heads. I felt a bit ridiculous in the get up. These rowdy women, mostly in the late 40s to early 60s age group, like to have fun! I had DB with me so I could feed her since this brunch runs until 5 or 6pm and I had to bring her if I wanted to stay all day. She did pretty well and at least didn't skip any of her naps.

So, I had my New Year's fun yesterday and it's G's turn tonight. I just got a text message from him saying that the group he's with (who I imagine are mostly older folks) are getting rowdy and hilarious.

Happy New Year!