(Photo used through Creative Commons and taken by Flickr user Cliff.)
I’ve worked on Christmas Day. I was in Japan. Christmas isn’t a holiday there. I find that a lot of my traditions and values are a result of where I was born and to whom. Christmas is special to me because it was special to my family. It was reinforced through television, radio, street decorations, and the festive spirit–as a nation we all had it.
But when I lived in Japan, aside from the beautiful street decorations, it was just another work day. What I learned is that as much as we want to believe we’re different, we’re more the same than we realize. Black, white, brown, or any other color, you’re more like your fellow compatriots than you think. In this way I feel distinctly American. It connects me despite the distance that separates us.
For the past three years, each holiday season I participate in a Holiday Blog Tour of women from around the world. A very special woman, Icess Fernandez Rojas has once again organized our tour for your reading pleasure. Some of it will be fiction, some nonfiction, but all of it will be interesting.
I’ll post a link to the first one in our tour on 16 December when we kick things off. Each day, one blog in the group will post a holiday story. After you read the story, the blog will link you to the next stop on the tour for the next day.
Here’s a list of our participants and their blogs:
Dec. 16 Teresa Carbajal Ravet, SententiaVera.com
Dec. 17 Nathasha Alvarez, Audaciouslady.com
Dec. 18 Natasha Oliver, Peace and Center
Dec. 19 Nikki Kallio, More Purple Houses
Dec. 20 Lupe Mendez, The Poet Mendez
Dec. 21 Anabel Lucio Morales, My Meandering Thoughts
Dec. 22 Icess Fernandez Rojas, IcessFernandez.com
Dec. 23 Regina Tingle, ReginaTingle.com