I enjoyed a healthy obsession with MASH when I was a kid. Of all the reruns that wouldcome on in the early and mid-1980s, none excited more attention from me than Radar O’Reilly (pre)noting the arrival of wounded people on helicopters. My parents were sure that this would become less of an obsession after a while, but when I got to high school I found some similarly minded friends. One of which arrived on our last day of school before summer with a pile of video cassettes. M*A*S*H. All M*A*S*H.

My summer revolved around M*A*S*H and only M*A*S*H. I was hooked. I named my bedroom the Swamp, bought olive drab boxershorts, and brought a pitcher to my room that served as a still. I was a pre-binge binger.

On February 28 1984, M*A*S*H ended for good when I was nine years old with the specially long episode Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen. There was lots of crying in my house. Probably because M*A*S*H was gone forever, only to be seen roughly 1,000 times a week in syndication. How sad.

As I was nine, I had no idea what a cultural event this was. 121 million people watched the last episode, the most ever and the most that would ever be. As cable TV became more prevalent over the next couple of years, no other TV show ever had the chance again to command that kind of -at-the-same-time viewership. And of course though zillions of people have watched The Sorpanos and Game of Thrones, they didn’t do it at one time. Obviously streaming allows people to watch newer shows whenever and wherever they’d like. A year ago, a stomach flu kept me close to (aka living in) my toilet. It’s there that I binged True Detective.

The site had been discovered here in the early 1900s. British archaeologists uncovered vats and thought they’d been used to dry grain. The location, deemed run-of-the-mill, was then literally forgotten about. It was found again in the 2000s and only during an excavation on February 14 2021 did archaeologists realize what the site was. A brewery. A vast, ancient brewery dating back to about 3100 BC and the dynasty of King Narmer.  

Though other ancient world breweries had been found, this was by far the most extensive and organized. The brewery could produce 22,400 gallons of beer in one go. It was laid out in eight standardized structures. This place was engaged in industrial beer production. Most of it likely went to the royals. Some of it was surely used in rituals, as it was considered sacred (and still is, but it’s hard to imagine an Egyptian priest pouring an Old Milwaukee over a sacrificial cow).

But when did people start making beer? Crude ancient breweries can be dated back 7,000 years and there’s evidence of a cave brewery near Haifa that dates back 13,000 years. The earliest barley beer is dated to 3400 BC in the Zagros Mountains (Iran). (The earliest grape wine dates to 5400 BC also in the Zagros Mountains, which were evidently the party grounds of the fertile crescent). But there’s some discussion as to how it started. Some historians suggest beer was discovered by happy accident. In order to make grains more edible, ancient tribes would soak and heat them, then let this sit over time and return to them. Sometimes they noticed that the action of wild yeasts from the air fermented the sugar in the gruel into alcohol. The result wouldn’t exactly have been a Dogfish 90-minute IPA, but a fizzy porridge-like substance that would nevertheless help our ancestors forget they were being tracked by Asiatic lions and enemy tribes. Since raising grains took time and since beer took a while to ferment, it’s thought that this was a precursor to the Neolithic revolution and ancient humans casting off their nomadic ways.

Though I have avidly travelled around Europe for the last 20 years, I have always been apprehensive about Spain. This has nothing to do with the culture, which is wonderful, or the Spanish people, who in my experience are absolutely wonderful. As one of the warmer counties in Europe, Spain is the place I fear I might run into a tarantula. And then there’s the mealtimes.

As I thought I knew, Spain has legendarily late mealtimes. Pictures I have had in my head concern a table of very good looking dark-haired people speaking the gibberish language that makes for Spanish in my head. They are sitting around what I thought tapas were and they are casually ignoring the clock on the wall, which says 11 pm.  

I have nothing against eating late – I used to be a major advocate of the midnight snack. In college the hours between 11 pm and 3 am were prime feeding hours. Amazingly, this is where my weight issues began.

However, it’s in my forties that eating after 8 pm leads to stomach issues and heartburn that could light up Newark. Nevertheless, upon buying a ticket to Barcelona for the weekend, I had to face my fears of mealtimes.

My mood was lightened when a little research told me that there were five mealtimes. Any place that has five mealtimes can’t b a bad place. I decide that Sunday will be my day to observe all five mealtimes of the Spanish.

Desayuno 7:00-9:00

This evidently should be a sweet snack. I opt for the churro with chocolate dipping sauce and a Viennese coffee (with whipped cream – go big or go home). I cry.

Almuerzo 10:30-12:00

This should be a salty snack to follow up the sweet breakfast, sort of like a reverse dessert. I go for an Iberian ham sandwich and a cup of Viennese coffee (if it ain’t broke…). I become drunk on joy and ham.

Comida 14:00-16:00

At lunch, I decide to get actually drunk on booze. I get a pitcher of sangria and wash it down with tapas, or, as I have begun to refer to it, my reason for living. Tapas are whatever you want them to be as long as they come on small plates and you share them with someone nearby. Today’s are fried artichokes, fried cod fritters, and ham croquettes. Ham croquettes taste like cream chipped beef fried in breading and if I don’t have them every day for the rest of my life, I will lose my shit.  

Merienda 17:30-19:00

This meal is meant to tide you over until dinner. It’s usually a sweet or a pastry, but a sandwich is also OK. Today it’s paella and shrimp with a liter of sangria. I chase this down with a shot, more like two shots, actually way more vermouth that one should drink. In Spain they drink it on ice and cut it with an orange slice. The end of merienda is a bit fuzzy, but I am bolstered by the fact that I’ll be able to eat in another 2 hours.

Cena 20:30-22:30

This is dinner. For dinner, I decide to get a burger. The waiter all but forces me to get a beer by pointing to a drinks menu. I have two before having two more.

I crawl into bed by 11:45 (I think). What have I learned? I learn that I love Spain. I adore a culture that makes sure there are only 90 minutes in a day (2 maximum) before you get to eat again. I have pledged my blurry allegiance to sangria, Spanish vermouth and wine, light beer, and chasing it up with tapas. I could live here. Ole.

I have been watching the TV show ‘Severance’ which centers around employees for a mysterious company called Lumen. These employees agree to undergo a process in which they have their brains altered so when they are at work they have no memory of knowledge about their outside selves (their outie). Likewise, when they are in the world outside of work, they have no idea what they do at work or about their colleagues, processes, or anything.

The plus side is that their outies are not bothered by work and their innies are not bothered by personal problems. The downsides are that their innies feel like they never leave work, because they are only conscious when they are there. So they are perpetually at work.

I’ve decided that I would get over this issue in favor of severancing for my work. The thing is, I already feel like I’m always at work and so at least when I’m there I won’t be bothered by things like whether my outie is skipping exercise or his upcoming dental appointment or if he’s considered an asshole by other outies who meet him. He’ll be unbothered by annoying social gatherings after work that evening and will thus not spend all day trying to come up with excuses to stay home and eat potato chips on his couch (a clear violation of my outie’s diet that will not bother my innie the next day at work). It will be a period of complete freedom.

As a person who makes money writing, I was indeed alarmed to learn that Artificial Intelligence will soon be hired to do those jobs. I need a job.

I’d offer to whore out my writing skills for people – I like writing shopping lists, I love writing recipes on the back of envelopes, and I have a zeal for drawing nooses during meetings. I’d be glad to bring you in on that. The problem, yet again, is that pretty soon my blended will be doing those things for you. With writing and noose drawing off the table, I needed some way to spend the rest of my life. I need direction. I’m turning to the most obvious course of action. Only Fans.

Now, I still have research skills and I use it to find out about the broad range of interesting and highly disturbing services that people are offering in exchange for money. After exploring my bag of talents, I opt for the following services.   

Watch me eat! For the low price of $37, you can watch me eat while I watch TV. This includes chicken wraps during Frasier or a roast chicken leg while watching 30 Rock. If you pay an extra $12, I’ll engage in witty banter with you about the show. Highlights include “They don’t make ‘em like Frasier anymore” or “Boy, 30 Rock was sure funny.” For an extra $18 I’ll describe my meal to you, and for $26 extra I’ll let you pick the show I watch, as long as it’s one of the six shows I watch while I eat (full list available on my page, but think 1990s psychiatrists).

At midnight on January 17, 1920 the Volstead Act made the sale and production of alcohol illegal in the United States. But as Americans had never been good at following rules (or rule for that matter), they almost instantly began finding loopholes and ways to make the inane law obsolete.

There’s no doubt that Americans had a drinking problem. Thirty seconds after the Mayflower landed on Plymouth Rock, everyone who’d been onboard started scrounging for things to make booze with. The guy who started the first bar was a demigod. Americans drank and tortured witches, the drank and started revolution, they drank and fought each other over slavery. They drank rum, which was cheaper and quicker than beer, and when Irish and Scottish immigrants brought it along, whiskey. America was the drunkest person at the party. Any 19^th century attempt to ban alcohol resulted in uprisal and riots.

In the early 20^th century, the temperance movement gained some traction. This was a movement led by women, who weren’t allowed in bars (hint hint) and were sick of dealing with drunkard husbands blowing money on booze and ruining their families. The movement was supported by factory owners, who were trying to keep workers sober enough to keep up new working habits (i.e. lots and lots of hours and lots and lots of sadness). Furthermore, prohibition was influenced by good old fashioned American racism. The influx of immigrants between 1880-1920 scared the hell out of a lot of white people, who were nervous that the flood of ‘boisterous’ lower class immigrants and the saloons that kept them happy would lead to a decline in the moral character of America. This, rather than say, slavery. We’ll forgive them this snobbish concern, since they were almost certainly shitfaced when they made it. With a pesky disruption in Europe stirring which would be known as World War I anti-German hysteria blew through the country and the only patriotic thing to do would be to shut down the mostly German-owned breweries.   

World War I in itself was another cause of prohibition. Nations tried to ration cereals and grains for the war effort and squash soldier drunkenness. Leaders in Europe had already noted the effects of alcohol on soldier performance, with Kaiser Wilhelm stating that the next war (which would turn out to be WWI) would be won by the least drunk nation. Tsar Nicholas II, whose Russia had lost the Russo-Japanese War partially due to intoxicated troops, banned the sale of vodka in retail stores. The stage was set for booze to be banned, and American went for it.

I have always felt bad for January. It’s the king of all redheaded step children. Surrounded by the dazzling December and the frustrated king frog that is February. All January ever did was come at a bad time of year. I determine to enjoy January this year, but January makes it hard.

Before January was even a month, it was disrespected. Native Americans called it the Wolf Month because it was the month hungry wolves howled outside of villages. January wasn’t even a month in Ancient Rome, being originally lumped into the winter which, as the Romans saw it, deserved no month. It was simply a cold shitty time of year that was better behind them than ahead or present. The year started at March, which is a calendarial idea I think we could all get on board with. When King Pompilius came along and added January, Romans could at least name their enemy.

Modern people don’t help the case for loving January. It’s known as Dry January, which I guess is the month for people to detox after the overindulgence of the holiday season. Or the previous 11 months. It’s also been labelled Veganuary, which is exactly what you think it is, but given the choice between going vegan for 31 days or quitting drinking for 31 days, I’d rather be dead. My search goes on.

My hopes were raised, if not a bit surprised at the naughtiness of January 2 being national Creampuff Day, but then I reread it and realized it was just about pastries. January 5 is National Whipped Cream Day. January is the month of all things cold. It’s National Soup Month and National Hot Tea Month. It’s National Oatmeal Month. These realities endear me to January a bit, as I love soup and oatmeal and have long advocated for days in their honor. Tea can go back to England. There’s a string of good holidays later in the month. January 19 is National Popcorn Day, January 22 is National Hot Sauce Day, while the 23^rd is National Pie Day and the 24^th is National Peanut Butter Day. I foresee January 25being National Go-On-Cholesterol-Medication Day.

St. Knut’s Day comes in the Scandinavian countries on January 13. On this day, St Knut (A Danish duke) was assassinated, which led to civil war. In Finland this day is observed by men who dress up as goats and visit homes demanding food and booze leftover from the holidays. If they don’t get what they want, they will commit evil deeds. As if dressing as goats and getting drunk doesn’t suggest evil enough. It’s said that St. Thomas brings in Christmas and St. Knut [and his goat men] take it away. And as we all know, nothing marks the end of Christmas like goat men. In Sweden St. Knut’s Day marks the end of the holiday season. Swedes take their Christmas tree outside and dance around it.

In America, and some parts of the south, January 22 is National Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day. On this day, one is supposed to listen with intent to the meows, mews, trills, and squawks of their curious furry little buddies and answer the questions they have been trying to convey for eons. These might include: why don’t you lick your asshole? I’ve been demonstrating the technique for you for years. Why don’t you sing the door opening song? Don’t you know it’s bad luck for us to go through a door without the song? This is why I keep coming back in and out. It’s so frustrating.

If I feel embarrassed by any of the cat’s questions, I’ll just drown the humiliation on January 31. AKA Brandy Alexander Day. If that doesn’t help, I’ll just worry about it in February.

Zen Hours on a Saturday

It’s 5 am on a Saturday. The alarm goes off. The night is still in process and, judging from the darkness and lack of sound, movement, life, or joy, it doesn’t plan on ending anytime soon. Burke and the Shihtzu are snug in bed, content and quiet and comfort ooze off them like little daggers and bury themselves into my skin and then assault my organs, which also want to stay in bed. I stuff a pillow over my face and moan. I sit up. I moan. I stand. I moan. I moan. I moan.

In the living room, the cat sleeps on her little bed on our bookshelf, looking just like a cat might being cozy in a cozy picture of a cozy country bookstore. Applying the case of Misery vs Loving Company, I poke her in the ear. She instinctively swats at my hand and looks up at me in confusion and anger. She’s wearing her Who the fuck is that? face. It’s instantly replaced by her Oh, it’s you face. I stagger through my quiet, dark flat. I press the button on the coffee pot. I drink a glass of water. I take my vitamins. This is no ordinary Saturday, one that promises relaxation and movies, a glass of wine with lunch maybe or a whiskey with my cereal. No. This is no Saturday. For I have to work.

I don’t really go for New Years resolutions. Any major positive changes I’ve made in my life have been done throughout different times of the year and often without planning, forethought, or fireworks. The major things I want to do in my life (write, work out, read, eat carbs) I already do. But I spent the break thinking about minor tweaks that could improve my quality of life. There are a few small ones (draw, replace Reddit in the morning with an article, stop showering in a British accent). But one that jumped out to me was being present.

I have always had a problem living in the present. I think too much about the past, like many of us, but my real realm of life is the future. I am always looking at my watch. I leave so early for trams that I often just miss the one before the one I was hoping to catch – which ruins my day. I am a poster boy for the country’s deep need to implement meditation into schools.

The worst for me is work. How many times I have awoken on Tuesday morning and wished it was Thursday afternoon cannot be counted. And all too soon, it’s Thursday. Worse, I am a teacher and being present in class is a real requirement. Nobody (certainly not me) wants a teacher on autopilot. So my goal was to think less about the future, be present in the present, and stop looking at my watch. Today – a working Saturday – will be a terrible test.

Oh, I’ve worked on the weekends. I spent my bachelor studies years waiting tables and bartending. In both, I was forced to go to into work when everyone else was leaving work. I would literally pass those people on the way to my job as they were leaving theirs. Our vibe, mood, aura were absolute yin and yang of the work world. Theirs equaled elation, relaxation, a peace of mind afforded those who didn’t have shit to do for 72 hours. Mine: misery, stress, the sallowness of mind damned upon those whose following 8 hours would require not only work, but working with people. My job was literally to help those people unwind from the stress of their very difficult jobs. Surely, the hours before working at night were terrible. I couldn’t enjoy myself. If I had to work at 6 pm I’d turn down lunch plans at noon. Sorry, have to work. But with bartending you have to be present. You are surrounded by dozens of people and they all need drinks in the present. There’s no time to look at your phone or think about later. You are busy slinging booze to hairless apes who need it.

Enter university life. Oh, sure, I thought, who has ever heard of a university teacher working on a weekend? No way. University teachers get the weekends off so they can hang around with younger women in small coastal towns. They need the energy to pull off a rollneck cardigan and shop at local marts. They require those weekend hours to do erudite things like open wine while talking about Rimbaud and listening to Hank Moseley (or one of those other guys) on the local jazz radio station. On Saturday night he must entertain equally as successful friends – doctors, philosophers, writers – in his rustic coastal town cottage, where they will wine and dine and talk about the problems of the universe and all the things contained within it.   

No.

Wrong.

For centuries, Christmas has been a time to let down hair, eat and drink in a way that causes doctors to cry, dress up, and celebrate with friends. It’s a time to cast aside the dietary and social guidelines we are governed by all year. A time to embrace heartburn and weight gain and the miracle of Tums and elastic waistbands. It’s long been a time of light in the middle of an unforgiving, cold, and dark winter. But despite these pleasant aspects of a beloved holiday, history has witnessed a war waged against Christmas.

To understand the origins of the war on Christmas, we first look at the origins of Christmas. Like so many of our holidays – Easter, Halloween, National Taco Day (Oct 4) – Christmas comes from the Pagans. In Christmas’ case, it comes from the ancient Roman feast of Saturnalia. This holiday honoring the god Saturn took place in the last week of December. Just as Christmas would, Saturnalia was a time to let loose and celebrate, and it involved a broad range of rituals both public and private. Romans set aside social barriers, cultural mores, and they drank, feasted, cosplayed animals, and screwed their neighbors. The party ended in the late 4^th century when Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I forbade all pagan activities, and decreed that the church in Rome was monotheistic and that December 25 was the nativity of Christ. Christmas’ coincidence with Saturnalia was no coincidence, as the Church was trying to get people to turn away from the sex, fun, and feasting of paganism and look towards the solemn prayer, guilt, and permanently-delayed gratification that Christianity offers in cheerful bucketloads. But Saturnalia’s customs wouldn’t be forgotten overnight and many of them carried over to Christmas. And so Christmas caught on in a big way.

Medieval Christmas was a twelve day event that was like a mix of Christmas, Mardi Gras, and Halloween. After the monthlong period of advent, a period of fasting, sober reflection, and wondering why you were Christian, Christmas started on December 25. It went through the Feast of Fools on January 1 and ended with Twelfth Night on January 5. (Today, January 2, is the ninth day of Christmas, so if you feel like partying in a chicken costume, go at it. Extra points if you include nine ladies dancing). During the festival, celebrants ate boar’s head, pies, and peacock. They drank cider and ale. They mummed, wassailed, hoggled, and probably some other archaic verbs. And then they experienced jollity and mirth. In another paganistic tradition nabbed from the Romans, presiding over the entirety of the Christmas festivities was the Lord of Misrule (or the Abbott of Unreason). This was a peasant or a subdeacon who acted as a faux king or a ‘maister of merry disports’ who oversaw the festivities and the Feast of Fools. They dressed as women or in colorful costumes and ‘leapt and ran’ while presiding over dining and drinking commoners. Major emphasis on the ‘drinking’ part, for the festivities were a time to get fralalalalalalala-liquored up. It was an explosion of joy after a period of restriction.

It will surprise nobody to learn that Christmas’ 17^th century critics were the Puritans. The Puritans were a sect of Christians that wanted to cleanse the Church of England from Roman Catholicism. Among other issues, they believed they did not follow scripture as rigidly as it should. According to them, there was no scriptural tradition on which to base Christmas. For in no place in any bible does it read ‘…and lo was the Christ child crapped out on December 25 in a manger and henceforth shall all humankind on that day eat hamloaf and buy reindeer sweaters at Target’. But the bigger issue was Christmas’ links to the aforementioned paganistic traditions. In the mid-1600s, English Protestants saw Christmas festivities, or ‘Foolstide’ as they called it, as nothing more than the ‘anti-Christian rages of the beast’, and while I’m not 100% sure what all those words mean, they definitely sound like Puritans being unhappy about other people having fun. When the Puritans took control of the government after the fall of Charles I, they tried to abolish Christmas. The custom of the Lord of Misrule was banned as well. Because it is a fact well-established that every time a pagan’s good time is ruined, a Puritan gets a buckled hat.    

Spoiler alert: Christmas won. Sure, the Puritan decrees were at times followed, but even the Puritans noted this was under duress and that the people wanted Christmas celebrations. The church simply couldn’t defeat a foe as popular as Christmas. Yet though we may look with a laugh at the curmudgeonly Puritans grumbling over Christmas, it did help dig cleavages in England that would lead to civil war and revolution. Christmas has survived, but it has had its detractors. Nowadays, people gripe about the commercialism of the holiday or the fact that shops put up decorations too early. If you’re a Fox News fan, or an idiot, you think there’s a war against saying ‘Merry Christmas’. Some complain that the hoopla is just too much and unwarranted, but this is nothing new. ‘It’s now December, the greatest part of the city is in a bustle . . . everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparation.’ This was written by the Roman philosopher Seneca in 62 AD in a letter to a friend in which he complained about the hustle and bustle of Saturnalia season. Some things never change.

While a resurgence of the Lord of Misrule was occasionally attempted, it never really caught on again. This is probably for the best, as it was recorded in Ancient Rome and later even in England that the Lord of Misrule was sacrificed at the end of Christmas. But today we drink in honor of the festivities and the twelve days of Christmas. And a-wassailing we shall go. Wassailing took place on January 5 or 6 and was an activity sort of Christmas carolling if it’s done by a tipsy rugby team. Poor or common people would dress up, make wassail in wassail bowls, and visit the houses of richer people and sing wassailing songs offering good tidings and blessings in exchange for food and drink. If they weren’t given this, then sometimes the wassailers got rowdy and demanded it before they’d leave. Don’t do that part.  

Ingredients

• 2 apples
• cups apple cider
• 2 cups orange juice
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 15 whole cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 Tablespoon light brown sugar

Instructions

Pretend the apples are voodoo dolls of your boss and your cloves are little daggers, and poke the whole cloves into the apples on all sides until they’re begging for mercy and offering you a raise. (nota bene: if you actually hear someone screaming while doing this, please put the cloves down and go to your nearest mental health emporium). Add all ingredients, including the (screaming) apples, to a large pot over medium-low heat. Bring to a simmer for 30-45 minutes. While this is simmering, stir occasionally, take in deep breaths, and put a wreath of leaves around your crown or put on an animal mask (yes, Goofy or Donald Duck are fine).

After 30-45 minutes, remove the apples and whole cloves. Ladle into mugs and a-wassailing you shall go! Go visit friends and sing to them and drink with them. Drink to a festival of light in the winter, drink to friendship and festivity, and drink to winning the war of Christmas.

By Thanksgiving, I had said it probably 25 times, in almost exactly the same sentence structure, with the same subordinate additions.

‘Nah, I’m staying here for Christmas this year, you know, it’s great to get home – Langhorne home – for Christmas, but yeah my parents and I basically agreed that I’d come home every other year. Last year was a pain, cancelled flights, COVID tests, all that, it’ll be nice to have a nice relaxing Christmas.’

I sounded like someone rationalizing a failing, a lost job, a recent breakup in which they had not been the victor. I sounded like someone doling out big portions of overcompensation. But it’s true, I was looking forward to a nice quiet Christmas at home. Here home.

Since we were both staying in Prague, Burke and I decided to make our here home Christmas a big happy event. We decided on a big tree, in her words ‘taller than me’, which I pointed out wasn’t the achievement it might sound like. We came up a menu of American side dishes – mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, pineapple souffle, stuffing – to cozy up to a main dish to be named later. Since it was just us for Christmas, we would get lots of gifts for each other and the pets (though I didn’t wrap the pets’ gifts too well, the dog has trouble pulling strings and the cat just doesn’t appreciate the effort). Here home Christmas was on!

I hauled the taller than me tree for a mile and half through the season’s only snowstorm. I carried it on my shoulders and in front of me in two arms as if it was a wrapped bundle. Each week I pitched a new main dish: ham, turkey, a roast chicken, lasagna. Every one of which was met with a half-hearted ‘okay’ which meant ‘no’. At least once a day I’d say to someone, ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am that I don’t have to fly across the world in December.’ They’d look at me in wonder and I’d continue. ‘Going to be a relaxed, chilled out Christmas.’

‘Good for you sir, now would you like to pay for that sweater?’

‘Oh sure.’

There were other signs that I was making a good choice. The grim promise of airport madness, threatened strikes, and in December bad weather reports that forecast snow and ice and delays and stranded people. All while I sat in my pjs on my couch, drank a beer and ate mashed potatoes along with something. My dad had decided (as he does now and then) that he would skip Christmas. In his mental mechanics of this plan, he doesn’t get anyone a gift and they do the like. He enacts this plan by telling my mom and a few others, but doesn’t mention it to his many friends and other relatives, instead hoping that his broad circle of friends and family can read his mind. Thus he ends up getting gifts and not reciprocating. This goes in tandem with a promise to only do one of our family’s holiday parties (‘Let me tell you something, this year I’m doing Christmas Eve and not Christmas. I’m staying home. I’ll order Chinese food.’) I don’t mind not getting or giving a gift, I just don’t want to hear about it while watching football.

On Christmas Eve, we spend the day watching Christmas movies and cooking. Our main dish is fried chicken cutlets, following the trend of our adoptive country. Later in the day I see pictures of my Langhorne home family Christmas. There are colorful hors d’oeuvres and salads and meatballs and happy Galeones in flannel shirts and elastic-waist pants. The tree is beautiful. In one of these pictures, my father actually looks happy, dare I say, teetering towards festive. Though he is holding a plate of pasta and it’s hard to be unhappy while you’re doing that. Though I am happy with my decision to stay here home for the holidays, I do feel some twinges of sadness and longing. There is nothing like home for the holidays. Even if home is far away, across a sea of discomforts and inconveniences.

On Christmas we have a wonderful day. I get and give gifts, finding in my old age that giving is more satisfying than getting and wondering why the world doesn’t get that yet. We listen to Christmas tunes, walk the dog, watch movies, and eat chocolate. In the evening, we tidy up and eat eggrolls and jalapeno chicken poppers, the traditional Christmas dish of an American in Prague in 2022. Six hours behind us to the west, my family is settling in for another day of eating and pushing the boundaries of their elastic waistbands. I talk to a friend in the evening.

‘Nah, I stayed here for Christmas this year, you know, it’s great to get home – Langhorne home – for Christmas, but my parents and I basically agreed that I’d come home every other year. I’ll be there next year, though, don’t you worry. Next year it’ll be nice to have a big crazy family Christmas again.’