We all know that the holiday season is most often enjoyed in the company of one’s family. I associate the holiday festivities with grandma’s cooking, the parents with wine glasses in hand and the noise of the younger cousins in the early morning.
Many say it is this festive time of year that is one of the hardest during an exchange experience abroad. The holidays spent abroad, away from your parents and all that you know is difficult, but I found that it doesn’t matter whether you are cuddled on the couch with your biological cousin, or you are dancing with your cousin from your life abroad during a France high school abroad program. When you are under the roof of a warm, welcoming house, between smiling faces and even trapped in the embraces of open arms, it doesn’t matter to whom the house belongs, or whether those arms pertain to your birth grandma or host family grandma because all the same, you feel the love.
Warm kisses, open arms, and silly moments I will remember from my holiday abroad:
This was my Christmas. This is the family with whom I had the blessing of sharing my holiday season.
Throughout the week of holiday celebrations I would meet new and incredibly kind family friends and/or family members and sharing conversation over grand French meals overflowing with enchanting flavors. I didn’t have a single chance to be down. Although I might have eaten a bit too much each day, I was delighted with the delicious tastes of high quality compté, camanberge and goat cheese, homemade typical French dishes, and the new flavors of frog legs or froi gràs appitizers.
I completely enjoyed my opportunities to participate in this classic French culture of sharing stories and discussion over a 4 course, 3 hour meal. Although I have been living “un peu près” the life of a French teenager for the past few months, teens all over the world are not too much different. It was during the week of Holiday “fetes” that I was exposed to the typical French culture in full bloom. But even with all the excitement and exposure to a completely new way of celebrating the holidays, the best part that made this particular Christmas of 2012 so memorable and joyous was experiencing the love from this family. I felt their affection, not as a family of correspondents for the short five months of my stay as an exchange student, but like they are the family who has always and will always take me in as their own. I have been assured that I am welcomed back with big kisses and open arms and am overjoyed with the idea of passing equally enjoyable moments with this family in the future.