'Tis the season

'Tis the season, so I was invited to a Christmas party last Saturday night. The invitation was for 6:00pm.

After living in Chile for almost four years, I sometimes forget that, in the US, it's not okay to arrive at a dinner or a party really, really late. I was only running slightly late, about twenty minutes, but when I arrived, the party was in full swing. There were other stragglers who arrived after I had, but the majority of the guests had arrived on time.

Everyone brought a dish to share and the hosts had prepared food, too. The tables were groaning, heavy with ham, turkey, enchiladas, posole, vegetables, desserts. You name it, we had it.

Many of us did not already know each other. We got acquainted while nibbling appetizers. Then, around quarter to seven, one of the hosts announced that it was time to eat dinner. People began filling plates and finding places to sit where they could balance them on their knees.

About half an hour later, I began to notice something, an exodus. People who had finished eating started to leave the party. By 7:30, half the guests were out the door and, by eight o'clock when I left, there were only a few diehards still there. I was home by 8:30.

I had fun at the party, but when I told this story to my Spanish teacher Vivi, she was incredulous. ¿A las seis? Her eyes went wide when I told her the party had started at 6:00pm. They began to roll around when I told her that I was home by 8:30. I could read her thoughts. ¡Que fome!

First of all, in Chile, a party like this would never have started until at least 8:00, more likely 9:00 or 10:00. And even then, most people wouldn't have shown up for another hour or so. They would not be ready to leave after only an hour and a half either. In fact, after an hour and a half, they might not have eaten yet and, even if they had, they would still linger long into the night.

After a Chilean party, the host might find their bed at 2:00 or 3:00 or 4:00am. Time well spent with people whom they had probably seen the week before.

Don't ask which is my preference. With friends, all parties are fun, but if I had my druthers, I'd probably split the difference and have three- or four-hour parties. I wonder which country in the world does that.

Happy Thanksgiving

Here I am in the good ol' US of A. Day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving, my first here since 2010.

I've bought my free-range, "hormone-free" turkey breast and organic white and sweet potatoes. I will admit to cheating by using Stovetop Cornbread Stuffing. My friend is bringing a vegetable and a pie, probably from Costco. My stomach doesn't like GMO-laden stuff so I hope it doesn't protest too loudly over the stuffing or the dessert.

I remember a few years back when an incident on a Black Friday, traditionally the day after Thanksgiving, caused a tragedy at a Walmart. A fight over some popular item resulted in death.

I have not been in the US for Thanksgiving in four years. Maybe it's been around for awhile, but I am noticing a particular trend this year. Black Friday doesn't start on Friday any more. Now, it starts on Thursday at 6:00pm.  Or 5:00pm. Or 4:00pm. Heck, maybe some stores are open all day.

Is nothing sacred? What happened to Thanksgiving? I remember when we anticipated it all week long. We dreamed of stuffing ourselves with yummy delicacies reserved for holidays. What happened to enjoying a leisurely family meal, then sitting around in a tryptophan stupor waiting until we could attack the desserts or go for another round of savory carbs?

It was probably sexist. Women washing up while men bonded over football, but we were together, a family unit. No one ever thought about rushing off to do Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving Day. It was a day of leisure with family and friends.

Now, it's woe to the cook whose family wants to take advantage of Black Friday. They might as well get up at midnight on Thanksgiving Eve and start cooking so that, as soon as the last fork is put down, they can warm up the car and take off for the mall to beat the crowds of other crazed shoppers.

I wonder what's the point of Thanksgiving. Are we such consumers that shopping is more important than spending time with family? Maybe, in the future, we will do away with it altogether.

Or maybe I'm just an expat who sees things from a different perspective now.

Shifting

"Are you missing Santiago at all?", my friend asked.

Since moving to Chile in 2011, I had previously only left for the summer because hot weather and I are not friends and I have no air conditioner in Chile.

When I moved there, I went with the idea of permanency, but this year, I've been out of Chile more than not. I even bought a small condo in the US during one of my visits. So now I have a place to go when I'm not in Chile. It has air conditioning and central heating. Though it's a one-bedroom, it's almost double the size of my two-bedroom Santiago apartment. I have my own parking space and I can easily run to Walmart, Walgreen's, or Whole Foods at almost any time of the day or night.

Do I miss Chile at all? Yes. I prefer walking across the street and shopping at the woefully understocked Lider where I have to time my visits so that I'm not there immediately before work, during lunchtime, or after work unless I want to stand in a long line.

I miss tasty food that is not (yet) completely GMO-tainted, eating things that are in season like we used to do when I was a kid. I miss good olive oil and delicious, inexpensive wine. I even miss marraqueta.

I miss my view of the Andes Mountains though the snow is probably melted by now.

The Metro in Santiago is overcrowded and malfunctioned on a grand scale recently, but it generally works fairly well. And then there are the micros, buses, and also swarms of taxis, not exorbitantly priced. I dislike driving and I miss mass transit, awful as it can be, because apparently I'm a city chick.

I miss my friends and wonder if it's really possible to maintain intimate relationships long distance.

There are many things I don't miss too, but that's for another post. With one foot in Chile and the other in the US, I should feel balanced and grounded. Oddly, I feel just the opposite, as if I'm shifting from one foot to the other, not sure I belong in either place.