I am very excited to be part of this year’s Virtual Advent Tour, and this is my first time here. I thought a lot about what to write here, then I came to an understanding that I should write about my experiences of Christmas in the two different countries , one from which I come and another where I settled down.

Growing up in India, during Christmas we had a 2-3 weeks break, which we refered to as the “Winter Vacation”. We went to the zoo, had picnics, visited our cousins house during this time. Though there were no religious strings attached we visited the some famous churches built  during British rule, and they were wonderful. My mom loved to bake so she always baked a cake for Christmas and New Year and made pudding. We also got store bought pastries (which were quiet expensive, so we only got them this time of the year), and boy were they delicious!!!! but there was no presents involved in this holiday.

Then  9 yrs before when me and my husband came to U.S., we didn’t celebrate anything, we just went somewhere for a week for vacation. But after I had my elder son 7 yrs back, we started changing…. now the change is significant. We put up lights all over the house (both my boys love this), we have a tree that we decorate, I bake cookies and cakes (from the box, hey, I am from India, we make curries no baking!), when we stayed in Pennsylvania we used to make snowman and now in Southern California we go to the mountains for a couple of days so the kids can play in the snow!!!  We buy presents too, for our friends, neighbors, now that ,my  7 yr  old is in  school for teachers and lots of greetings cards are sent over to India for grandparents, uncles & aunts and cousins….

We have come a long way in celebrating the holidays, I loved my holidays of my childhood in India and I love my holidays now with my little cozy family in the U.S. and I look forward to this wonderful journey more…..

Happy Holidays Everybody……..