{"id":42770,"date":"2024-12-03T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T03:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/?p=42770"},"modified":"2024-12-07T12:48:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T03:48:59","slug":"an-immigrants-christmas-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/essays\/20241203\/","title":{"rendered":"An Immigrant\u2019s Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was young and living in Hong Kong, Christmas was all about sending Christmas cards to relatives and my parents\u2019 friends around the world, looking at extravagant light displays on skyscrapers, giant Christmas trees in shopping malls and the most important of all: winter vacation. Other than that my family never really celebrated Christmas in Hong Kong. To be honest, I don\u2019t even remember if I ever got an actual \u201cChristmas present\u201d while living there. We didn\u2019t eat any special food to celebrate the holiday season. I suppose the most Christmas-y thing I did back then was that I had to sing Christmas hymns<\/strong> at school because I went to a Christian school.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When my family moved to Canada, my brother was in high school and I was still in elementary school, so I think my parents, namely my mom, tried hard to give us a more \u201cCanadian\u201d kind of Christmas. I think many immigrant families living in western countries had the same experience where things aren\u2019t really quite right because of the lack of knowledge about the holiday in general. Remember, this was before the age of the Internet, so information wasn\u2019t an easy click away on Google or YouTube.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One year, I believe it was the Christmas morning of \u201996 or \u201997, my dad had the bright idea<\/strong> to buy the board game \u201cMonopoly\u201d and tied it to a string. One end was tied to my doorknob and one end was tied to my brother\u2019s doorknob. The idea was that he\u2019d wake up both of us at the same time, and the fastest to open the door would get the present. Number one, that\u2019s not how Christmas presents work. Number two, we\u2019ve never had any reason to wake up early on Christmas morning, and so neither one of us opened the door as excitedly as he expected us to. Since then, he\u2019s vowed<\/strong> to never give us Christmas presents ever again because we\u2019re \u201cno fun\u201d. He has kept his word<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s my mom. After having turkey when we tried to celebrate a Canadian Thanksgiving, my mom decided she didn\u2019t care for it <\/strong>and she\u2019d bake a whole chicken instead. My entire family loves chicken so we didn\u2019t really care that she decided to replace the turkey. It also saved the four of us from having to eat turkey for five meals a day for a week as leftovers, so that has gone on to become my family\u2019s Christmas tradition until this day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One year when I was in high school, my friends and I got together and rented the classic horror movie \u201cThe Exorcist\u201d during Christmas, and since then, watching horror movies on Christmas has become my personal tradition while living in Japan if I have nothing better to do. There\u2019s something about how ridiculous it is to watch a horror movie on a family holiday that makes me smile. I recommend watching older horror films because of how outdated the special effects and make-up are. It makes it less scary, and might even make you crack a smile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After moving to Japan, I started celebrating Christmas the Japanese way with KFC. I love fried chicken and I need all the excuses I can get to feel less guilty<\/strong> about ordering a whole set of fried chicken. Chicken also reminds me of how my mom would make chicken for the holiday, so I remember my family, and it feels like home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Loki<\/p>\n

\n

Vocabulary<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

hymn<\/strong> (n) \u2013 a religious song; a song that praises God<\/p>\n

bright idea<\/strong> (phr.) \u2013 a clever thought or plan, though usually used sarcastically<\/p>\n

vow<\/strong> (v) \u2013 to make a serious promise to do something or to behave in a certain way<\/p>\n

keep one\u2019s word<\/strong> (idiom) \u2013 to do what one has promised<\/p>\n

don\u2019t care for<\/strong> (phr.) \u2013 to not like something or someone<\/p>\n

guilty <\/strong>(adj.) \u2013 feeling bad because you have done, or think you\u2019ve done, something bad or wrong<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was young and living in Hong Kong, Christmas was all about sending Christmas cards to relatives and my parents\u2019 f\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":42773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42770"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42772,"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42770\/revisions\/42772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oneup.jp\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}