Surviving the Holidays
Well, Thanksgiving just passed. For the third year in a row I missed Thanksgiving with my family back home in Arizona. Luckily I have amazing friends here in Oahu that invited me to their families Thanksgiving dinner. I got to experience a lot of new foods that I never would have expected to eat on Thanksgiving. I got to experience new traditions from a different culture and as cliche as it sounds I got to find a new meaning of Thanksgiving and what I am truly thankful for. But now that that has passed I am looking forward to Christmas. It is hard for it to feel like Winter when everyday’s sunny and beautiful out and for that I am thankful but I will say that I do miss the cold feeling of Winter. But I can never complain when it is December and I am going to the beach and getting in the water and getting a nice burn from the sun. And I know that when I go home and it is cold I am going to be missing sunny Hawaii. There is something in me that just loves driving through the neighborhoods and seeing Christmas lights and seeing the Hawaiin Santa Claus throwing up a shaka in downtown Honolulu. Besides the expensive plane tickets, I am really looking forward to being back home for Christmas. Since coming to Hawaii three years ago, I only go home once a year for a week and a half. Before going home there is a few things that I have to do. Like going to the beach and enjoying the water but also getting a good tan so when I go home I’ll be the tannest person since everyone else has been bundled up with their winter clothes. The other thing I have to do before going home is working out so extremely hard and as much as possible because as soon as I get on the plane to go home I will not do any physical activity. I treat Christmas as my vacation time and my time to just relax as I am unwinding from the school semester and the Fall baseball season. And let me tell you, I am excited to just do nothing. The adventurous and spontaneous Daniel does not exist when he leaves Hawaii. And of course I am looking forward to spending New Years back in Hawaii and seeing the amazing display of fireworks that go off at midnight. I, like everyone else, will be making my New Year’s resolutions and following them to a tee for about two weeks and then forgetting about them. But there is hope. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!