Sisters for Christmas!
Until now, I haven’t divulged this very important news – partly because I thought it too personal and partly because I’m still processing the magnitude of recent events in my life and the life of my family. Holidays of course are all about family and having spent most of the day with mine I feel it impossible not to include them here…
I have a sister! For those of you who know me personally, this is big since prior to December 6th, I didn’t have one, at least not in any real sense. My mother immigrated to the United States from Vietnam in 1975, and for various reasons too complicated to explain in this little post, she left behind my sister, Nga. Nga was raised by her paternal grandparents and for the last 40 years of her life has been going about living without my mother in her life. For the past eight years or so my mother had been working on bringing Nga, her husband, and three children to the U.S. On December 6th she succeeded and we all went to the airport to pick up our new family. A reunion long overdue and certainly the highlight of this year for us personally. So this Christmas, we had five more people at the table and even with all the squishing and disorganization this was without a doubt one of the best Christmases the I can remember. I have a SISTER!!!! Someday, maybe that won’t have such a surprisingly wonderful ring to it, but until then I’m just going to keep saying it and you’ll just have to humor me, deal?
In honor of my sister and the Christmas holiday, here is my favorite scene from the 1954 musical White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. Even without the plot to set this up I hope you can appreciate the expressions on their faces, especially at the end where I suspect they had a hard time keeping semi-straight faces so as not to ruin the shot.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all, especially Nga and her family. We are so very happy to have you in our lives and I look forward to the Christmases to come!
