It's been a while.

It's been a while since I've been living in France. With Christmas coming up, I've been thinking more and more about how much I miss my life a year ago, which is strange because a year ago I really wanted to be home for Christmas. Last year at Christmas time, I was teaching lessons about Christmas-themed vocabulary and walking in the snow down light-filled streets buying Christmas presents for people just so it would feel like Christmas. I was anticipating my grand voyage around France for Christmas and New Year's. And although I was loving every minute of it, I was missing being home that time of the year.

But this year, for some weird reason, I'm missing being in france missing being home. It's like home this year just isn't quite what I'd imagined it to be in my mind last year. There's no snow on the ground. That's a first in my lifetime for December 17. (And what do you know... the ONE day it snowed and got slippery out, I killed my car on the ice.) I don't even have my Christmas tree up in the basement. We did the one upstairs at my request, but it's still not the same with only my ornaments on it. The one cool thing about it though is that this year I put on all my awesome ornaments I bought in Europe last year. :) This year I didn't even get Christmas presents for people. I'd rather spend it on myself... a lesson I learned when I spent time and money sending Mom all that jam and honey only to find it still upopened in the cupboards when I got home in June. And I worked Thanksgiving night and will be working Christmas Eve night. Not exactly what I had in mind when I was missing holidays at home last year. Don't get me wrong, I'm SO thankful to be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It'd just be nice to be a kid again.

With that said, I'm doing some new stuff that I never did before at Christmas time. With my awesome new job as a French teacher, we're prepping to go Christmas caroling around school and have some French food festivities the day before break. It'll be an exciting week this week, I'm sure. This is one of THE weeks why I wanted to be a French teacher. It's just so FUN!

I've found myself still not completely out of living-in-France mode. A few days ago I left the grocery store with one of my grocery bags from Lure filled with groceries. As I was walking out the door, I thought to myself for a split second, "Oh man this is heavy. I don't want to carry this that far." Then I snapped back to reality pretty quickly and realized my car was just right there and I wouldn't be treking across town to get home. The other day I put on my winter coat to go somewhere. (The one I'd missed so badly in Disneyland.) I've been wearing it all season. Nothing new or out of the ordinary. But when I put it on and zipped it up, I immediately reached around me for the tie to tie around my waist. What, what? I don't have one on that coat. Last time I wore a coat like that was in March-ish! It's just weird the things that I still do that remind me that those 9 months are over.

At the end of the day, I love my life right now even though I'm not still in France, and even though some days I say I hate it. There really is no place like home for the holidays.