Last time we heard from Carrie, she told us about her trip to the Bahamas. It’s clearly about time for another, more season-appropriate update, don’t you think? This time, Carrie shares her feelings on what it’s like to celebrate Christmas with your family in the USA, compared to spending the festive season with your loved ones back home.
In all of my 24 years of life I have always been with my family over the Christmas period. Christmas at home is one of my favourite times of the year, it’s a time where family and friends from far and near all gather and enjoy the festive season together. This year is my first year not being home and not seeing any of the people I hold closest to my heart and it is something I find myself struggling with. I know many people think ‘oh but you’re in America, that’s way better’ and yes, I totally 100% agree… I am in America and I get to experience Christmas with an amazing and loving host family but I’ll still miss celebrating with my own family and friends.
I have always been incredibly close with my family… we have traditions we like to do each year like decorating my Granny’s house, having a Christmas movie night, going to my Dads house on Christmas Eve, partaking in the cooking of Christmas dinner, seeing our extended family on Christmas day, all the phone calls and generally just embracing each others company. Christmas did change six years ago as it was our first one without our Grandad and that never gets easier, but we all hold each other close and reminisce of the fond memories of our loved ones who are with each other in the big house in the sky!
I count myself lucky though because I have great friends and family to lean on for support and even luckier because some of those friends are in America who are all feeling the same things. I just spent a weekend at Long Island University completing a course to get some credits (I would totally recommend going- the course, the campus and all the other au pairs there were a lot of fun. Oh – and not forgetting the food!) and met some really great girls who I instantly just clicked with. When we spoke about being away from home the feeling was mutual. This made me feel a bit better because it reminded me of how I’m not alone in this feeling. One thing we all agreed on: Skyping your loved ones back home definitely helps!
I am lucky in many ways and I am very excited for my first Christmas in America… I have a great host family that I get to spend it with and my sister is coming to visit me next month. But today when I got home from Long Island I got my first couple of Christmas cards from home… the sweet messages and pictures are surely adding a festive feel to my room now. Feeling a little homesick around the holidays is something I expected though, and something I’m sure I’ll get over soon!
I would like to wish everyone a happy season, and a very Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a great New Year ❤️
