A couple of weeks ago, my Danish friend Marie came home to find this sitting on the floor in her room. Make the biggest circle you can with your arms. Open that up by about two feet. Now you have the size of the giant, unexplained paper-maché object that appeared in her bedroom. She had no explanation for why this thing was there: her birthday is in July, and mid November seems early for Christmas traditions. The way she tells it, there was a following conversation that went something like this:
Marie: Mamá, did you know that there is a GIANT PIÑATA in my room?
Mamá: Of course- I put it there!
Marie: But why?
Mamá: What do you mean?
Marie: Why did you put a GIANT PIÑATA in my room?
Mamá: Don´t you like piñatas?
Marie: Well, yes I like piñatas, but....
Mamá: There you go- enjoy it!
At this moment in time, the piñata is still sitting in the exact same spot. My friend has spent weeks tip-toeing around this thing as she gets dressed in the morning. You can sit on her bed and look at it. The natural thing to do would be to invite some people over and break it-right? But I don´t know: what if December 19th is national "Break-That-Piñata-Your-Mother-Gave-You" Day? Is she supposed to save it? Then again, what if host-mom feels offended because she didn´t invite friends over to break it? How exactly does one enjoy a Christmas piñata?
To make the situation slightly more awkward, she recently discovered the piñata is filled, not with candy, but clappy hand toys. Yes. These things.
At this point I would like to open the floor to any and all suggestions on how to enjoy a large piñata filled with clappy hand toys. Points for creativity. Gold star if you´d like to buy some.
But all kidding aside, this situation is really representative of what it´s like to spend a major holiday away from home. You´re going along just fine, and then suddenly your room is invaded by a paper-mache globe wielding unfamiliar cultural expectations. You can get stressed, or you can laugh. Everyone does a little of both, and somehow it works out.
I´ve spent the last 15 Christmasses enjoying familiar traditions, delicious foods, singing sentimental songs, and spending time with my loving family. I love that. I´m really glad that I will be able to go back to that. At the same time, it´s good for me to loosen up and change the way I think about this time of year. I realize that I´ve had such rigid expectations for what constitutes this season, it´s good to learn new traditions. Because really, learning to be happy while things are new and unpredictable is a skill, and a useful one at that.
I think every now and then, it´s good to have a clappy-hand-piñata show up in your room. Happy December 8th!
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