Eric always left Pittsburgh and went home to Miami for Christmas, so 2010 was our first Christmas ever spent together. We were both excited to make it a special one, especially since it was also our first Christmas away from our families. We tried to bring traditions together from both of our families' Christmas celebrations to make our first California Christmas feel like home, including hanging colored lights on windows, finding a larger than necessary Christmas tree, personalizing stockings, decorating with ornaments, and wrapping presents to place under the tree. I tried to make it feel like Christmas. The lack of snow and cold, gloomy weather didn't bother Eric, but the lack of change in the weather made me feel like something was missing. It didn't feel quite right, even though it felt warm and remained beautiful. I missed the change of seasons. I missed the peaceful silence of a snowy night, the calm beauty of snowflakes falling on barren trees, and the colorful lights illuminating icy white rooftops and frosted windows. Because winter was missing, it didn't feel like the Christmases I was used to.
Not only was the lack of winter strange, but the absence of family and friends became a widening gap. To fill it, I kept decorating. Grateful for the many Christmas cards that came from all different directions, I taped them to the walls to keep our family and friends present in our little Mountain View apartment. I hung ornaments received as wedding gifts and ornaments passed down from Eric's mom. I laid out Grandma Might's place mats and plugged in the glass present centerpiece. And I wrote my new family's names on stockings the way my mom did and filled them just like my mom would have done. I tried to make it feel like Christmas.
Even if it didn't feel quite like what we were used to, and we missed our friends and families more than ever, we still had the new experience of a wonderful first Christmas together--warm, sunny, and quiet, but together. We made new memories and our own traditions, like dressing up for the extravagant Google holiday parties in San Francisco, listening to live Christmas carols sung by Eric and his fellow Gleeglers, watching the San Francisco Ballet on local TV programing perform the Nutcracker, making a gingerbread cookie family (complete with ninjas and teddy bears), (Emily) jumping up and down because we could get It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve, going Christmas shopping together, wrapping presents in separate rooms to maintain secrecy, being entertained as Mia opened her wrapped up bones, and cooking our first Christmas dinner and sharing it with Uncle Tom, who hasn't had Christmas with family in awhile.
It was a different Christmas for both of our families, Eric's family losing a son at Christmas but gaining Caylee in Miami. My family losing a daughter at Christmas, and a father also, as he celebrated Christmas not with his family, but with his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan, volunteering to say the midnight mass and trying to make it feel like Christmas in a very foreign setting. My family in Pittsburgh, and my family in California, had to make some major adjustments this Christmas, but we did our best with new experiences, kept in touch as much as possible, created new memories, celebrated a great Christmas and the end of a very eventful year.
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| Whole Foods certified Organic Christmas Tree! |
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| Eric stringing lights |
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| All that extra height comes in handy! |
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| Our first Christmas tree |
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| Enjoying their presents |
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| Gingerbread family |
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| Ginger Ninja |
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| Eric and Uncle Tom enjoying Christmas ham |
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| Bad picture at the Google holiday party, but the only one of us dancing. There was fake snow falling from the ceiling! |
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| Enjoying refreshments provided by Google at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. |
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| Drinking from a toilet water fountain at the Exploratorium |
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| Real water fountain, unused toilet. |
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| Horse and carriage ride at the California Academy of Sciences |
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| The California Academy of Sciences |
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| Photo Booth Fun at the California Academy of Sciences |
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| Photo at the Exploratorium |
The Google holiday parties were ridiculously fun, with an overload of entertainment. We went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco on a Friday (a three hour bus ride), so that Eric could perform Christmas carols with his Gleegler group. As we entered they gave us glass test tubes full of a fruity alcoholic drink and we were greeted by mad scientists and men on stilts. There were many things to do at the Exploratorium, similar to what you would find at the Carnegie science center. But there were also acrobats doing rope tricks, a couple of cover bands trying to create dancing, numerous drink and food stations that included pot stickers, tamales, sandwiches, salads, sushi, and deserts, and photo booths.
The California Academy of Sciences was also in San Francisco, but was a much faster bus ride on a Saturday night. This was Eric's team's party, so he knew some of the people there. It was nice to meet his coworkers that I hear so much about and their girlfriends. It was a huge museum, with a very nice aquarium, a planetarium, penguins, a rain forest, a polar room where it actually snowed, an outdoor garden and rooftop hang out. For the Googlers and their guests, there was also a nice selection of food and alcohol, DJs and dancing, photo booths and hologram photos, and horse and carriage rides. We only made it to the aquarium, penguins, photos, carriage ride, and dancing. We missed the rain forest, planetarium, and whatever was on the roof. I got my little bit of winter as we danced in the (fake) snow in the polar room amid tipsy programmers and polar bear ice sculptures. It was quite an event, and I think Eric working at Google in California was worth it just to experience these parties!
