Our Christmas Story In Korea

Twas the night before Christmas, and next to the tree

the husband and cats were fast asleep awaiting the arrival of he.

Who was the “he” that they waited for there?

The postman of course, as Santa hasn’t found us since we were in daycare.

The tree was done up with ornaments and lights,

and the star was on top leaning slightly to the right.

The handmade stockings were hung on the TV stand just there,

and we were sure the cats would attack them with flare.

The postman did not arrive as timely as we’d hoped,

and as Christmas morning dawned, we could only cope.

Our friends would be arriving for a Friendsmas to remember,

and all we could wonder was why our family hadn’t sent the gifts in November?

Numbers were dialed and phones were connected,

this overseas Christmas thing has really been perfected.

When it’s Christmas eve in Kettering and Christmas morning in Seoul,

we call each other up for some Christmas family time as a whole.

This year we added the Australia time zone to the mix,

my sister married an Aussie and moved there as one would predict.

Her Christmas is now warm while ours is still cold.

Can you really have Christmas in the heat? I’m not sold.

As we said our “I love yous” and hung up the phone,

my heart began to thump and really groan.

My husband hugged me and said, “It’s okay,

soon we’d have friends over, our family for the day.”

It’s true, no matter where I be,

on Christmas Day I must be surrounded by those on my “family tree”.

Be they really a part of my family or not,

if you come to my house on Christmas, you’ve got a spot.

Come one, come all, come whenever you can,

this includes that one friend who shows up two hours later than

everyone else who comes on time,

but not to worry, I’ll save you some food and even some wine.

There is lots of food, including my apple pie from scratch,

there’s ham and mashed potatoes and a tangerine batch.

Everyone brings an addition to the table,

salads, fruit, bread and even sundubu jjiggae* is a staple.

There are no pictures of the food, as it was too delicious to wait,

As soon as everyone sat, the food was gone from the plate.

We ate it all up and cleared the table with care,

for now it was time for songs, games and gifts to be shared.

Christmas, to me, is a time for family,

and every year I’m thankful and very truly

aware of how lucky I am to have everyone,

and with that I shall say, “Thank you and Happy Holidays, this story is now done.”

*Sundubu jjiggae is a Korean tofu stew.