Christmas Eve

24th of December, Wednesday

Yay, this is the 100th blog entry!
In Hungary, this would be the first day of Christmas. We celebrate the close-family Christmas on the day and evening of the 24th. The day is spent with decorating the Christmas tree, wrapping presents and cooking Christmas dinner. Then, at 7 o'clock, everybody comes down to the living room, nicely dressed, and we have our Christmas dinner (which is usually either orange-duck or plums wrapped in turkey breast). This year, my family at home had fish for some reason. Then when we're finished, we get up, take some Christmas pictures, maybe sing a song and light up some sparkles. Then we finally give each other presents. One of the things, that I always get, is DVDs. My mom is kind of a collector. We spend the rest of the day with watching a movie I got for Christmas.
  When I was smaller, I would spend the day at my Grandma's apartment, and we'd go home late in the afternoon. I'd find, that the Christmas tree was decorated by the "angels", and "baby Jesus" placed gifts underneath it.
  This year though, I was trying to organize my catastrophicly messy room. It seems silly, but whoever would have seen the state of this room, would have agreed, that the situation is merely impossible. Nonetheless, I tried.
  At 5 o'clock, we went to church, for a 1 hour service. When we got back at 6:30, everyone got back to packing, wrapping, cooking. The big Christmas Eve dinner was chilli. It's understandable, American's don't celebrate Christmas just yet. We decided to give each other presents the next day.
  This year, I've gotten several scary, heart-jumping emails from my parents, emails full of bad news. The worst one was the news about my Grandmother's passing, the second worst, was when she got a stroke in October, and today was the third. A candle burnt down our dining room at home. Luckily, my Mom fell asleep on the couch (that's what she does, if she's too tired to go upstairs to bed), and she woke up to some strange sounds. I can't even imagine, what she felt, when she saw the flames eating on the dining room table and three other chairs. She was probably shocked, and full of adrenaline at the same time. She put out the flames with buckets of water. By the time my Dad got downstairs, there was only a puddle, and the sad remains of our living room furniture left. Must have been horrible. It all happened at 2 am, Budapest time. We skyped with my parents at 3 am. They were still up (no wonder, the adrenaline stays for a longer time), and they showed me the damage. Looks like we're starting the new year with some new furniture. I can't believe, how lucky it was, that the flames didn't spread towards the drapes, and my Mom was right there to be heroic and put the fire out.
  This will be a memorable Christmas for my family, a Christmas of firsts. First time I'm away, first time something burnt down in our house (ever), and the first Christmas without my Grandma, both for me and my Mom. I remember, whenever she gave someone a gift, she always used to say: "Strength, health and lots of love to you!". It's better for her to spend this Christmas in Heaven, than to spend it in a hospital.
  Everybody says, that Christmas is the most critical time in the exchange student's life, because the homesickness is the worst. I don't know if it's the fact, that I'm going home 2 days later, or that I skyped with my parents twice today, but I don't feel homesick at all. I'm just enjoying a regular American Christmas. Which starts tomorrow.