In exactly 18 days, I'm headed to North Carolina to ring in the holidays with my family, and I am beyond excited. We don't really celebrate (thanks to a logical, yet uneventful, blend of Buddhism and agnosticism) and, being the crazy doctor he is, my brother often has to work through Christmas. But this year, Tim's flying home and I'm joining him. I don't know why I'm so psyched: My parents' house is hardly a vacation. There's no cable, Internet, newspapers, or snacks. My dad refuses to crank up the heat, even in the deepest frost of December, and insists that we all wear our winter jackets inside. It's so spartan that even Erik calls it "a little piece of communist China in the United States." But all of that wackiness is familiar, nostalgic, and wonderful. Tim and I will giggle and read our books as our parents blast the Chinese opera downstairs. We'll head to the local cafeteria (where the steak dinner is still $3.75), seafood spot (where everything on the plate is beige), and new Target in town (where my dad will exclaim "wow! so big!"). But, best of all, I'll hold their little hands, soft and spotted with age, to steady their stroke-affected shuffle as we go from house to car, and they'll say, "Thank you, meimei. So proud of our good girl, our daughter." That's why I can't wait.
P.S. The icing on the cake: We're going to get a new family portrait taken Sears this year! Boo-yeah!
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