Merry Christmas! And other home-for-the-holidays tidbits

Merry Christmas from the Repak/Aloia clan!

"Home for the holidays" was hardly the snowy white Christmas card it conjures up. Luckily, the general lack of snow was a reflection of the unseasonably warm Christmas season. After a month of being spoiled by very moderate Parisian temperatures, my fears for the worst upon traveling stateside were happily unfounded. And so I faced my high school hometown with an unbuttoned jacket this holiday season.

I say "faced" because homecoming often feels that way. Don't get me wrong: it's an amazing feeling to be able to hop on a plane, jet around the world, and find myself surrounded by so much love from my entire extended family and friends from all different stages of my life, from Long Island, Pennsylvania, and MIT. That said, "home for the holidays" is a confusion right from point 1: "home." As someone who's moved every three or four years since before the age of seven, the reality of home as a fluid, constantly changing concept is a given. The funny thing is that my perception of "home" and I are evolving far faster than the landscape I once called by that name. How can this old town look so much the same when it feels so different? And in case this archetypal experience of the twenty-something outgrowing her old home weren't enough, consider that this home is packed exclusively with memories from high school years (not exactly a high point for me). Pour in a healthy dose of jetlag, garnish with a bit of cross-cultural confusion (which isn't even supposed to happen in my native country!), and you've prepared yourself a cocktail that will leave your head spinning.

Wow, you really do need cars for *everything* out in suburbia.

The cashiers and service staff understand ever word I say! (Or if they don't, it's their linguistic shortcoming, not mine, for a change!)

Why are so many people walking around in sweatpants?

Carding, seriously? Aren't we overly worrying this 21 thing?

Oh right, tips. I'd forgotten about those...

And so my head kept spinning.

Bewilderment aside, this break was actually my most fantastically relaxing Christmas since I began living abroad. For something novel this year, I actually slept an eight hour nightly minimum and finished each day in the same state, in the same house even! Mind you, I was hardly left twiddling my thumbs. I managed to fill the time with stress over internships and future job prospects, PhD worries, and (on a lighter note) day trips into New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. I kept my schedule crammed, catching up with friends and family over lunches, coffees, dinners, a cousins' campout, and even wine flights and an amazingly energetic performance of Jersey Boys that's still got me humming the Four Seasons songs.

Family field trip to the Dogfish Head Brewery!

Thanks to a new no-booking-needed policy at the Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware, my parents and I went on a pilgrimage on the day after Christmas to visit America's thirteenth largest (and my favorite) craft brewer. The Brewery is home to one really awesome tree house and a bar full of "off-centered beers for off-centered people." (To get a better feel for the brewery and why they appeal so effectively to such a nerd as me, start by checking out their Ancient Ales.)

New York through windows

It's not really Christmas without a trip into "the city" (aka New York), but this year I didn't get much more of it than a bar and my sorority little sister's apartment in Long Island City, Queens. No Rockefeller Center, no Windows at Saks. But in exchange for my travel time (besides enjoying a lovely reception from a good friend), I also got some spectacular views from my various forms of NY-based transportation.

With the luxury of a direct flight, I returned comfortably to Paris and to a renewed battle against my deadly eastward-bound jetlag, all in time to ring in le nouvel an.

Happy holidays!

The Repak family, Philadelphia, Christmas 2013