Happy Christmas Eve Day, ya'll!

That's right, I said, "Ya'll." It doesn't matter how long I end up calling the Left Coast my home, I will never stop using 'ya'll.' My friends and lovers out there tease me endlessly, but I maintain that it's one of the most useful words in American parlance and sounds infinitely less pompous than enunciating "Ewe Awl." Yes, I love the city. I prefer the hustle and the seething masses and the sounds of the cities (like the crackheads fighting by streetlamp outside a second story loft in the Tenderloin and the ubiquitous street cleaners running at all hours) to the maddening quiet of Southern Indiana farm country, but I can't see myself ever losing the MacGyver tenancity or the slight southern twang that one is bound to develop over an adolescence spent among farm folk. Ya'll also makes sense linguistically, as English is a Germanic language, and German has a common pronoun for 'you all'- 'ihr.' Thus, it is only natural and proper that English should have developed a similarly useful word, and therefore, I think all of you who laugh at my "ya'll" are simply etymologically confused.

This past week certainly has me thinking a lot about the differences between the city and the country, as I am back in Southern Indiana, visiting my folks for the holidays, pirating the neighbor's wi-fi, because my family doesn't have use for the interwebs and my neighbors have not seen fit to password protect their connection. Suckers. It's nice to be at such a slow pace for a moment, though, recuperating after a hellacious last semester of undergrad and spending time with my parents and the little brother, but I'm quietly thankful that I'm going back home to the city by bay so soon. It's silent here, cold and flat and cripplingly gorgeous, but I have to drive a half hour just to get a decent latte and I miss public transportation. Also, all the shops and restaurants closed at noon today for the holiday. (Not that the restaurants here have much that isn't covered in gravy or wrapped in bacon. What, you're a vegetarian? Isn't that an eating disorder?) WTF Bible belt?! More than two weeks here, I'd go a little crazy. I definitely understand how fundamentalism thrives in this environment, because one does feel completely cut off from the rest of existence. Globalization? What globalization?

The idea of tradition is deeply entrenched here though. I look at my parents' tree (a real tree that we trekked into the wilderness and hacked down the day after Thanksgiving) has three decades of history hanging from its branches. From the 85-year-old Polish glassware my parents inherited upon their marriage to the creepy snowman icicle my mom received at her office party last week, our tree tells the story of my family. Every ornament has a memory and though I come off as hard and unaffected in my professional life, the sentimentalist in me can't help but be humbled by the history enveloped by those simple glass knickknacks. Tradition is an odd meme. Every family has little habits they developed over the generations, and though we all understand that these habits are mere social constructs, the sentimentalist in all of us tends to fuss that the holiday simply CANNOT happen without the special Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, or gathering around to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" (please don't make me watch it again...), or the Old Country game of hiding a glass pickle in the tree for the children to find for a special present on Christmas Morning. (I assure you that my teenage brother and I still compete like 5-year-olds for the pickle present.)

What's the real reason for the season? Historically, it's not Christ. Easter was the big one LONG before Christmas was really embraced, especially by protestants (here's a really cool synopsis of the history of the Christian-ness, or lack thereof, of the holiday). It's not about finding a Wii (though it's always fun to give presents, can't we just do that all year, like hobbits?) It's about doing what families do to feel like a special bond does indeed exist in blood. We may disagree politically, religiously, and fundamentally, but for a week in December, families do their damnedest to love each other (or at least they should). The blood-bonds are forged in the fires of those seemingly innocuous traditions.

Along with that (moreso in my coastal city than in the Midwest, I've found) is the urge to expand the definition of family. The old adage that you can't pick your family is just not true. There is room in every tradition for new family members and that's what makes the holiday a holy day, not religion, not commercialism, but the ability to make anyone family, because we are all a part of the same human family. So you want to share in my pickle? You are more than welcome to come to my Southern Indiana home. And I intend to carry the Holy-day spirit for the next 365 days in the Bay Area. I encourage all of you to do the same by holding an open mind and an open heart for a new definition of family, including friends, pets, lovers, and strangers. With that I bid you Merry Christmas, Happy (belated) Solstice, an awesome end to Saturnalia, and a joyous yule!