Holidays and Homesickness

Last night I read the director's letter to the SYA students' parents.  He mentioned that the students should be talking to their parents no more than once a week and that, "it may seem counter-intuitive, but feelings of homesickness are best faced by seeking resources within their midst here."

Daniel was at meditation (he has no trouble committing to activities -- at the moment he and the kids are olive harvesting over at Pat and Linda's house, as the Agroecology SYA kids did yesterday...I say to our kids, "You get to harvest olives in ITALY...how cool is that?  Off you go!"...and then I stay home, go for a walk, grocery shop, write a bit...), Mary was doing homework, I was writing progress reports, the other kids were watching Italian cartoons, i.e. American cartoons dubbed in Italian (Our teachers tell us that we should!  Even the director of Paradiso says we should!).

I read them the excerpt from the letter.  They were feeling pretty good about themselves, saying, "Yeah, we talk to the Raymonds and to Ellen about once a week."
"And talking to our aunts doesn't count, does it?"

Halloween is Wednesday.  It's the holiday I was feeling worst about their missing at home.  I can't imagine having left home for a year when I was their age.  I liked routine and traditions and rituals.  I found comfort in the predictable and the simple and the ordinary: bags of candy that ended up filling the pantry freezer for dessert for months; turkey dinner for both Thanksgiving and Christmas; our family and Gram and Margo together; everyone around the Christmas tree in the basement (what we called, "Way down"); a Snickers in my Christmas stocking.

We'll be together for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, but I still have some trepidation about these holidays for the kids.  Will they be good enough?  Will the kids be sad?  Will we parents pull off the holidays in a special enough way?  Halloween won't have their buddies; Christmas won't have quite as many presents or The Chateau and Brandeis and cousins; Easter won't have the neighborhood Easter egg hunt in our yard.

Halloween feels like a big holiday for the kids because it's with their neighborhood friends, and our neighborhood is alive and full, and the spreading out of all that candy over the living room floor is artwork in and of itself.  They don't ask Daniel, and I turn a blind eye for a few days as they eat way too much sugar; after some days we monitor or give away, but those first few days are kid heaven and kid freedom.

I had intended to make Halloween special here for them, figure out a way to trick-or-treat or something along those lines.  Alas, the Italians don't trick-or-treat; Halloween is an older kid darker holiday, we've heard, where folks dress up as dead people, and there's more tricking than treating.  A colleague told us, You'll be missing nothing (we're headed to Naples on Halloween).  Her description of Halloween did not make our kids want to celebrate.  Instead, she told us about Little Christmas on January 6 and Mardi Gras/Carnival, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  The nonne (grandmothers) drive down the street in Fiat 500's and give out candy.  And on one of the holidays there is the largest sock ever holding candy for all the kids.  I don't remember which details go with which holiday (I am generally a step behind), but I know that Mary felt more at ease about not trick-or-treating here in Viterbo and that the kids started to look forward to January 6 and Mardi Gras.

While I'm not importing Kit Kats and Reese's peanut butter cups and Twix for Halloween (though I have a memory that my mom did send these to me the semester I spent in Rome and one of my sisters did attempt to do so before learning at the post office that this sending would cost $88 per envelope), I did put some Ferrero Rocher and Kinder chocolates into my grocery bag this afternoon to put out on Halloween morning.

One holiday at a time.