My First "Real" Holiday

By Jennifer Goddard

Most people think of snow, singing songs, and warming up by the fireplace during the holidays. But for most of my life, December and July might as well have been the same month for me.

Ho-hum Holidays

You see, it was always sunny and hot in South Florida. Sometimes it got chilly for a couple days in January and everyone would get excited about wearing a sweater. But we wore shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops most of the year. You could close your eyes on Christmas morning and pretend it was the first day of summer! Some people might think it's great to be able to play at the beach in the middle of "winter," but it was impossible for me to get in the holiday spirit!

Snow Fakes

Of course, my parents tried to make it feel like the holidays. They put up tons of decorations and spray painted snow flakes on the windows. One year, my Mom even made our desk into a fireplace by decorating it with paper that looked like bricks. We sat in front of our "fireplace" and tried to sing "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow"— there was a better chance that the desk would start dancing before it would ever snow in South Florida! It was hotter outside that day than it was in our pretend "fireplace."

The Real Thing

Thankfully, I finally got to experience a "real" holiday! By "real," I mean like the kind of holiday you see in commercials and on greeting cards. My big family got together at my aunt's house in Massachusetts one year. And we sang songs around a REAL fireplace and drank hot apple cider. The best part—we didn't have to spray paint snow flakes on the windows because it was really snowing outside! I gave my Mom a big hug and thanked her for all the times we had to fake the "holiday spirit" because without it, I probably wouldn't have been so thankful for the real thing.