Holidays away from home

Before I even realized it, the first month of year 2019 is almost coming to a close. Wow! Time does fly just like that.

I had spent the first few hours of the New Year with one of my colleagues, a lady from Colombia, a guy friend of hers from Algeria and two more couples from Russia. After watching the 15-minute fireworks display by the Saigon River and braving the human and motorbike traffic in District 1, we hung out at the Russian couples' hotel room. I was actually hesitant to join them since I'll be the partner-less seventh wheel. But they turned out to be good company - not the kind of couples one would feel awkward to sit with. Since most of us were English teachers, the wee hours of the morning were spent sharing our "war stories" in the classroom and our common struggles in finding jobs (Except for my Colombian friend who had a British passport, the rest of us were classified as non-native English speakers.). There were some drinking and some singing, too.

On the other hand, my Christmas Day was less eventful. I was literally alone from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, I prepared some dishes that my family traditionally has on the Christmas Day table - baked macaroni, pork kaldereta and fruit salad. After attending mass at the Notre Dame Cathedral on Christmas Day itself, I ate the dishes that I had prepared for lunch.

Faye had predicted that I would be crying from homesickness. But I proved her wrong. Tears - 0, Maria - 1. Haha. 

Well, this wasn't really my first time to spend Christmas Day away from home. Six years ago, a time when I had also just started a new job, I couldn't fly home for Christmas. That time, I did cry while listening to some familiar OPM Christmas songs. This time, although my Facebook and Instagram feeds were filled with photos of families and feasts as expected, I had refrained from playing any Christmas song. And also, primarily because the locals here are not really big on celebrating Christmas (My students didn't even know that Christmas Day was the 25th. They all thought it was the 24th.), the day passed just like any ordinary day.

A thought crossed my mind - What about celebrating the next Christmas away from home again - maybe on an overseas trip? Going on that trip would really depend on where I would be based by then. In any case, I don't think I would mind not spending Christmas in the Philippines anymore.

Right after the New Year celebrations, Tet season began. Tet is the biggest holiday season for the Vietnamese - definitely bigger than Christmas and Gregorian New Year's Day. The word "tet" means festival and it's the shortened form of "Tết Nguyên Đán," the Feast of the First Morning of the First Day. Tet is the equivalent of the Lunar New Year season.

For this holiday season, I get two weeks off work (which also means I lose two weeks worth of salary. Huhu.) since the schools close the week before the Tet week itself. Now, this is my time to go home, spend time with family and a few friends and settle some paperwork in the Philippines.

Chúc mừng năm mới, Viet Nam! See you soon, 'Pinas!