Christmas Day

Well, Kaia was happy to learn that Santa also makes trips to India. Thanks to a number of unopened gifts from Kaia’s Grandme and a few of our own, the little guy got to really enjoy the pleasure of gift opening. He received a number of new pj sets and a few new DVDs, but of course, the highlight was a new puzzle set. He has moved up to the 50 piece puzzles and I still cannot understand how he is able to do them so easily….

Still, it doesn’t feel like “Christmas” to me, and I suppose that my wife will feel the same way in a week during o-shogatsu. There are just some things that you have to have in order to truly feel it to be a full experience. As far as Kaia goes, he seems to be enjoying himself regardless. His Christmas memories are just being developed, so many he’ll come to associate it with spindly trees and humidity. Who knows.

Why I Love this Time: Driving home from dinner last night we were blocked for some time by a large procession. Based on my calendar reference, and with all of the lights and music, I assumed that it was a some folks celebrating a Christmas mass. However, it was not. It was a group of pilgrims who were preparing for a trip to Kerala to take their coconuts for blessings—Ayyappan is the name of the God that they are honoring and it is a widespread activity with different groups going at different times. This just highlights the range of diversity that you see in this place…