A Very Peace Corps Christmas

This post is going to be formatted a little differently than my others.

Christmas is an important time of year for me and I know that I have far too many thoughts about it to condense into a normal post. So, what follows is a sort of Christmas diary that I’ve added to throughout the season. Because Armenian Christmas happens in early January, you’ll likely be reading this long after you’ve tucked your lights and trees away in your attics. But I hope you’ll still have some lingering holiday spirit to enjoy my recounting of a very Peace Corps Christmas season.

Thursday, December 7th, 2023

The Christmas season is officially underway. It’s been underway for a while, but today is the first day I’ve really felt it. This will be the first Christmas in 24 years that I won’t spend with my parents and brother. In college, I spent the majority of the lead-up to Christmas in New York but after finals finished I was always home before Christmas itself. It has started to sink in recently how different this year will feel. Today I woke up to an email from my dad with a video attached. He has been going through the process of digitizing all our old home videos and the video he sent is titled “2002 Xmas.” I hit play before I even get out of bed.

The video takes place in our old house that we lived in when I was in pre-school and kindergarten. Its opening shot is of the main staircase draped in greenery. Immediately, you see my brother Jacob bound down the stairs into the living room. Behind him, my mom follows leading me by the hand. I’m sleepily and slowly descending the staircase, clearly, it wasn’t my idea to wake up so early. You can faintly hear me coughing (my nickname as a baby was “wheezy”). The next few minutes of the video are my brother and I pulling out presents from the tree and dumping our stockings out. My dad is behind the camera shouting out instructions to us, my mom is fielding the chaos of the gift opening. They both yawn between words and I can see it’s early enough that it’s dark out through the window. At one point our mom directs our attention to the empty plate, save a few cookie crumbs, and a half-drunk glass of milk by the fireplace. There’s a card from Santa expressing his gratitude for the snack we left him. Small details like this made my childhood Christmases so magical. Back then, Santa and the elves got all the credit, but as I watched this video more than 20 years later, all I saw was the dedication our parents put into making Christmas special for me and Jacob.

Later in the video, Jacob and I have changed out of our Christmas PJs and into our special outfits for the rest of the day. I can tell this was the year that I was obsessed with ballet because I’m pirouetting around the kitchen. After one particularly aggressive spin, I fall flat on my face but jump up unscathed. Post-kitchen antics, we cut back to the living room with some of our extended family. It makes me sad to admit but I don’t recognize my Papa at first. He passed away the year after this video was filmed. Seeing him speak and interact with us brings back memories long long forgotten. Soon more family members join the festivities in the living room. At this point, I’ve changed into a pale pink ballet costume. I’m unclear if it was a gift I had received that day or if I’d been so inspired by the Nutcracker music playing in the background that I insisted on doning my leotard. My aunt who used to dance as a ballerina lifts me in the air to try and assist my entrechat. I hear my mom in the background tell someone that I’ll be 4 in two weeks. Hearing this pulls me out of 2002 and back to the present and reminds me with a jolt that I’ll be 25 next month.

Seeing this video unearths a lot of memories of emotions for me of past Christmases. Our family had many traditions that we strictly enforced every year. Cutting down our own tree, eating Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and little smokey sausages on Christmas morning, wearing the colorful paper hats from our Christmas crackers at dinner, and listening to my parents’ eclectic Christmas CD collection that included the Barenaked Ladies, Christ Isaak, Amy Grant, and albums from our favorite Seattle radio station featuring local artists. The most nostalgic of all these albums for me is called “When the Silent Night Starts to Sing” by Tom Hunter. Tom was a folk singer that my parents knew from their church. This album was comprised of all original songs he wrote and was performed by him and members of our church. A few of the featured singers even sang at my parents’ wedding. All the songs stir up strong feelings for me, but none more so than one titled “Light in the Darkness.” In it, Tom sings

There’s a light in the darkness

A calm in the storm

The angels are singing

A baby is born.

Christmas of 2019 I listened to this specific song ad nauseam. I was at school in New York and it was finals season. But unlike past years, when my homesickness was a mere nuisance, this year it was nearly debilitating. That past summer and fall two close friends of mine had passed away suddenly and shockingly in horrible accidents within months of one another. The entire Fall semester had been incredibly difficult for me, but that December everything seemed to compound. Every day when I woke up, I felt like I was underwater. I couldn’t put words to it then but looking back I know that I was fighting through a deep depression. As I studied for finals that year, the only thing that propelled me forward was knowing I would be home for Christmas. My family, our traditions, and some sense of normalcy were the lights leading me through the darkness. In anticipation of this, I played this Tom Hunter song nearly every day while walking to class or writing final papers. I needed those words to echo through my head. There is a light in the darkness. That year, Christmas changed for me from being about magic and gifts and Santa Claus, as it had been back in 2002, and it took on a new meaning. I thought about the symbolism of the nativity story; A baby born to refugees searching for a home, a north star in the black sky. Lights in darkness. I thought about people putting twinkling lights on their homes during the darkest month of the year and about my own situation, searching for a light to pull me out of the darkness. When I listen to that song now, I think back to that time and how Christmas came to represent hope for me. The spirit of the holiday is something I hold onto fiercely now. And I know as I begin this season in a very new place far far from home that I’ll need to continue reminding myself of all the light in the darkness.

Watching that video this morning prompted a lot of musings about Christmas that I’m writing here now. It also inspired me to play my trusty Christmas playlist finally and as I walked through town, “Washington Square” by Chris Isaak came on shuffle. It’s a song from his Christmas album that my family and I would listen to every year. Until now, it was never notable for me, just one of many songs from my childhood. But listening to it today, I felt the lyrics deeply. In his deep Elvis-like voice, he croons,

I know you're so far away

But you know that I still feel the same

I know you're so far from home

But no matter how far, you're never alone

Oh, it's Christmas again.

Friday, December 15th, 2023

Yesterday, my counterpart’s homeroom class of 5th graders held their Secret Santa session. Earlier in the year, they had begged my counterpart to let them play at Christmas time and she acquiesced. They also insisted that I participate. Last week, we pulled names from a box on which I had pasted a cut-out drawing of Santa. I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to read the name of my selection because they were all written in Armenian letters. But as soon as I unfolded my slip of paper, I knew exactly who I’d pulled. It was the name of one of the star students in this class. A girl who always sat at the front and was the first to raise her hand when I asked questions. She loves to sing and dance and on more than one occasion I’ve walked into the classroom to see her demonstrating a dance routine at the front of the room. From the moment I met her, she had reminded me of myself at that age. 

So that weekend as I wandered around Yerevan admiring the Christmas markets and sparkling lights, I wondered what I would have wanted as a gift at 11 years old. Of course, I would have loved a new toy or a cute little outfit. But as I thought harder, I decided that what I really would have wanted was to feel special and seen by someone I looked up to. With this in mind, I bought a little notebook, some pens, and a sheet of stickers. I figured this toed the line between providing a practical and a fun gift. On the inside of the notebook’s first page, I wrote a short note wishing my student a Merry Christmas and encouraging her to only write in this notebook in English. 

When we distributed our gifts to our selected recipients in class yesterday, she was shocked that I had pulled her name. She opened the gift excitedly and immediately hugged and thanked me. I motioned for her to unwrap the notebook from its cellophane and read inside. As she did, her eyes lit up. Her friends helped her translate my note. She promised me that this notebook would only be for English. The student who had pulled my name got me a beautiful plate painted with Armenian symbols and scenery as well as a hanging vase of sorts decorated with Armenian fabric and ceramic pomegranates. I suspected that after she had informed her parents she needed to buy a gift for her American teacher, they stepped in and helped select gifts that reflected their culture. 

Today, as soon as I walked into class, my Secret Santa recipient ran up to me and thrust the notebook into my hand. Sure enough, the first two pages were filled with a journal entry all in English, with no grammatical mistakes I might add. She wrote about herself and her brothers and their hopes for the future. “I want to be a cardiologist or a surgeon,” she wrote. She told me that she had a similar journal that she kept in Armenian, but that she had decided this would be her English diary. As soon as she finished her assignment for the day, I watched her pull the notebook out of her bag and begin writing. She raised her head only a few times to ask my counterpart for some translations of words. 

I hope that she continues showing me her entries. But mostly, I hope that my little gift will help foster her passion not only for English but for challenging herself. Maybe one day, instead of writing in a notebook, she’ll be writing her own blog like this one so I can keep up with all her achievements and adventures. 

Friday, December 22nd, 2023

Last night I had my first really bad bought of homesickness. It was initially triggered because I woke up with a stuffy nose. That may sound like a silly reason to cause an emotional spiral, and it probably is. But I spent the majority of November fighting a pretty nasty respiratory infection. In the past few weeks, I had just started to feel better. So feeling under the weather again really hit me hard. Nothing exacerbates my control issues worse than my body not operating how I want it to.

I’m leaving this weekend to go to a house some other volunteers and I rented to spend American Christmas together. I’m excited about this but the logistics of getting there are complicated and have been causing me some stress. So all this compounded with Christmas being 3 days away and me not being home with my family sent me into a minor breakdown. I had tried to go to sleep early to hopefully rest away whatever resurgence of illness was happening. But of course, I couldn’t fall asleep. Everything that had been weighing on me this Christmas season finally broke through. I don’t cry often and when I do, I try and get it all out in one go. So for the sake of catharsis, I leaned into it and queued up a song in my headphones guaranteed to help instigate the waterworks. Every year, one of my favorite singers Phoebe Bridgers releases a Christmas-themed cover song. They’re usually hauntingly sad but beautiful. In 2021, she covered Tom Waits’ “The Day After Tomorrow.” The lyrics take the form of a letter written by a soldier at war to his family at Christmastime. 

And it's so hard and it's cold here

And I'm tired of taking orders

Admittedly, I’m not a soldier and I’m not fighting on the battlefield. I have a warm bed and food readily available and a lot of love and kindness shared with me. But it is so hard and it is cold here. And I am a little tired of taking orders. 

Today, I woke up with a headache as is often the case after a restless night. I feel much better though. I’m writing this from my school’s auditorium, waiting for a holiday talent show to begin. Students are running around in their traditional Armenian costumes and their best holiday outfits. They’re quickly practicing their songs and routines while parents and teachers find seats in the crowd. It’s the last day for them before the break and the excitement and cheer is palpable. It’s fun for me to see students I recognize from my classes preparing to showcase their talents. The best part is being surprised by some of my shyer students whom I wouldn’t have expected to be interested in performing. There aren’t quite enough seats for everyone and I’m glad I got here early. Theoretically, this was supposed to start at 1 pm but as often happens it’s nearly 1:30 pm and people are still filing in. I’m content with waiting though. After a hard night, it feels good to be sitting in anticipation of something good that’s yet to begin. 

Saturday, December 30th, 2023

It’s been a whirlwind first week of winter break. Today, I’m finally getting some time to myself to reflect. It started a week ago as I sat at my desk at 7 a.m. running through the sequence of events that needed to happen before my mini Christmas vacation could begin. I hadn’t slept even an hour the night before. Again, I think many factors were to blame, the primary two being the 4 cups of coffee I had drunk the day before and the constant dripping sound of melting snow emanating from the hole in my wall. First, I thought to myself, I needed to take the bus to Yerevan to the Globbing shipping headquarters and pick up my package which had arrived just barely in time. Weeks prior, I had ordered a box of traditional Christmas crackers that I hoped to share with my friends that weekend as a part of my family’s Christmas traditions. Then, I would need to walk down to the metro station to catch my taxi to Vanadzor. In Vanadzor, I would meet up with my friends and buy my portion of the food for that weekend. Then we would all take taxis to the house we had rented in Dilijan. While going through all these steps of transportation in my head, I had a sinking realization. What if the shipping center isn’t open yet? I checked online and sure enough that day it would open at 10 am. This was a problem because my taxi was leaving from Yerevan at 10 am, a 30-minute walk away from the shipping center. It may seem like a small thing to be upset over, but these Christmas crackers felt important to me as a way to stay connected to the traditions I had grown up with. I resolved to arrive at the shipping center around 9:30 am as I had previously planned and hoped that some employees would be there early to let me in. 

So, that’s how I came to be standing outside the glass doors of the Globbing shipping center staring at the massive giraffe statue, the company's mascot, bursting out of the walls. When I first arrived, there was no one in sight to plead with, so I left to grab a coffee and kill some time. When I returned I was overjoyed to see two young women behind the desk. I knocked on the glass to get their attention and began my plea that I had practiced in my head in Armenian. They must have thought I looked like an insane woman with my sleep-deprived eyes and a massive duffel on my back. They opened the door to speak with me and politely explained that they were not open until 10 am. One of them motioned for me to go into the apartment building lobby next door. I thought maybe they would come to meet me and discuss more, but when I entered the lobby I saw more of the sleek black lockers that had also lined the shipping office. Excitedly, I scanned the barcode from my email but nothing happened. A man waiting in the lobby saw my distress and came over to help me. As often happens, he began speaking to me in rapid Russian. I was so tired and my ears were blocked with pressure from my worsening cold that it took me a few seconds of staring at him in pure confusion to even realize what language he was speaking and why I could understand it even less than I can understand Armenian. A young woman coming down the steps tried to step in and assist as I was explaining to the man that I don’t speak Russian. Once they realized that I could converse slowly in Armenian, they explained to me that I needed to wait until 10 am. Frustrated, I thanked them and went back to the glass doors to the main office. Again, I knocked on the glass, this time a bit more hurriedly. The poor shop girl came over again and began to tell me again that she couldn’t let me in. I had gotten tired of trying to speak Armenian so I typed into my google translate app and held it up to the glass. 

“I need to catch a taxi at 10 am, can you please let me in now to get my package so I won’t miss it?”

She read my message and for a split second, I thought she was reaching to open the door fully and welcome me in. But she took my phone instead and typed her own message. 

“I could let you in, but the lockers are on a special computer system and they automatically open at 10 am.”

I realized at that point that no amount of appealing to her would help me because she wouldn’t be able to access my package until exactly 10 am anyway. As  I contemplated how I could maybe manage to stay until the lockers opened and then race to my taxi, I got a call from the driver. He told me he was 10 minutes away from our meeting point. Our meeting point which was a 10-minute drive from where I currently was. Faced with the choice of abandoning my precious Christmas crackers or missing my taxi to go meet up with my friends, I chose to get to my taxi meeting point as quickly as possible. Of course, once I arrived, the driver was 20 minutes late anyway. As I sat in the taxi climbing through the snowy Armenian hills, I imagined myself as the main character in a Christmas movie where all their plans to have a perfect Christmas go comically wrong. The point of these movies is always that it’s not the material aspects of Christmas that make it special, but it’s the joy of being surrounded by people we love. I chose to embrace this cliche and let go of my insistence that I needed these little paper party favors to have a good holiday. 

And so I did, I had a wonderful, very unique, and unforgettable Christmas 2023. Once I arrived in Vanadzor and rendezvous-ed with my friends the frustration and disappointment from the morning melted away. We traveled together to our Airbnb nestled in scenic Dilijan, met our lovely hosts, and settled into our home for the next few days. What followed was a weekend of laughter, good food (shoutout to head chef Sarah who treated us to numerous home-baked treats), and festive activities. From recreating TikTok dances with kitchen utensils as microphones to card games that devolved into making snow angels in shorts and t-shirts, we made new Christmas memories together to distract ourselves from being far from home. We even used some printer paper and pens to recreate the paper hats that would have come in my Christmas crackers. Everyone acquiesced to my demand that we wear the hats all through our white elephant gift exchange to replicate the way my family would wear the tissue paper hats through Christmas dinner. At meals, we went around and shared about our family traditions, the best presents we had ever received, and our New Year's resolutions. The house only had wifi in one specific spot so if we wanted to connect we had to sit in the stairwell. This created an occasion we would call “stair time” where all of us would sit together on the steps to check our messages and post photos. Then once we all had our fill, we would return to our disconnected state in the rest of the house. We all agreed that those of us who would be staying in Armenia next Christmas would try and rent the same house which we had begun to refer to simply as “The Christmas House.”

On Christmas day, we traveled together back to Vanadzor where everyone would then separate and take their own transportation home to their sites. But instead of going home, I was going up to spend a few days in Stepanavan with my boyfriend and his host family. That night we attended the town Christmas tree lighting, complete with an appearance from Dzmer Pap (Father Winter) himself. We counted down from tasne to mek and watched the massive tree in the main square burst into sparkling lights. As we were leaving the square to walk home, a loud bang and the following fizzle caught our attention and we watched fireworks being lit off above the crowd. We called our families back home and served as translators to facilitate introductions between his host parents and our real parents. The next day I accompanied them to a party at a local hotel to honor and celebrate some young Armenian soldiers from the town. Hours of eating, toasting, and dancing ensued. 

This has certainly been the most unique way that I have ever spent my Christmas. But it’s not over yet. In Armenia, New Year is the major winter holiday. As I’m writing this, the day before New Year's Eve, I am sitting in my host family’s cafe where all their Christmas decorations are of course still up in anticipation of the New Year and then of Armenian Christmas on the 6th. Yesterday, I returned to Yerevan to finish my shopping (one of the perks of celebrating Christmas 2 weeks later is all that extra shopping time) and faced the Globbing office again, this time within their regular business hours, to finally retrieve my long-awaited Christmas crackers. I’m planning to share them with my host family tomorrow during our New Year's celebration and to bring some when I visit my PST host family later this week. So of course, like a classic Christmas movie protagonist, I’ve realized that everything has worked out in the end even though it wasn’t how I’d planned it.  

Sunday, January 7th, 2024

Here we are, exactly a month since I began this blog post/journaling project. We’ve now arrived at the end of the Armenian Christmas season. The past week has been incredibly busy for me and for most other Armenians as the country celebrated the coming of the New Year. Last Saturday, I accompanied my host family to a party at their cafe with their close friends and employees. We ate together and exchanged Secret Santa gifts. Spending time at the cafe has been such a wonderful addition to my life here since moving in with my new host family. It often feels like I’ve stepped into a sitcom, with familiar faces becoming regular characters and some kind of entertaining plot always going down as I sit and observe. The next day was New Year’s Eve, which for Armenians is the most important and most celebrated winter holiday. I spent the day lounging on the couch with my host sister and host grandparents (not so different from what I would be doing in America). In the evening, I helped prepare some traditional Nor Tari (New Year) food. My host mom patiently taught me how to roll blinchiks (crepes filled with ground meat and herbs that are then pan-fried). Eventually, I got the hang of it after many a mis-rolled blinkchik having to be unrolled and redone to make sure they were perfect. Soon the table was laid with fruits, nuts, sausages, a traditional pork leg, and various salads. Just before midnight, we quickly changed the TV channel to tune into the Prime Minister’s address and poured our drinks. At the stroke of midnight, we toasted to the New Year as the sound of fireworks blasted throughout our micro-district. Then the festivities continued at the cafe. Friends and family came by to drink and dance and congratulate one another on the New Year. I gave my host family their gifts and included a few of my Christmas crackers (yes, the much-anticipated ones from my last entry) in their bags. I explained the tradition to them and helped to pull apart the crackers and fish out the little toys and hats. We finally left the cafe around 4 in the morning, sufficiently partied out. Another lazy morning (morning may be generous, it was more like afternoon) ensued until it was time to get ready to go visit some relatives. Shortly after arriving, my host sister and her cousin convinced me to come outside with them to light a firework. I was under the impression that it was a small sparkler-type thing. It was not. I was the last one to run away when it sizzled and then exploded. The sound of the bang immediately made my ears ring as I jumped back into the apartment building. To my host sister and her cousin’s amusement, I was the one standing dumbstruck holding the lighter when their older cousin ran outside to investigate the noise.

On the 2nd, I traveled down to the village I had lived in during Pre-Service Training to visit with my former host family. As I was walking from the bus to their house, I watched a stray cat leap up and catch a dove that had escaped a neighbor’s cage. Well, I thought, I am definitely back in the village. I had only planned to come for the day, but my PST family insisted that I stay the night so that I could go with their kids to a party with all their friends and cousins our age. During the afternoon, I sat and chatted with my old host mother. I could tell she was surprised that I was actually able to hold a basic conversation in Armenian now, and even get some jokes in. Every 30 minutes or so, a couple of friends or relatives would appear and my old host mom would usher them to the extravagantly laid table to eat and toast. As soon as they left, she would quickly wash the dishes and relay the table in anticipation of the next guests. This repeated 5 other 6 times in the few hours I was there. Each time of course I was invited to eat as well so I developed a strategy of taking small bits of food and sips of wine to pace myself. That night, I accompanied my old host siblings to their cousin’s house and spent time with them, their friends, and some cousins including the young couple whose wedding I had attended over the summer. The next morning, I made my way back to my site for another day of recovering from the celebrations. My host sister and I spent that afternoon watching movies together, the perfect antidote to the 72-hour-long party that was my first Nor Tari in Armenia. 

Reflecting on the past month, it’s been one of the most emotional seasons of my service so far. There were aspects that I knew would be hard, but also things I didn’t expect to be as difficult as they were. But of course, on the flip side, there was so much joy, and fun, and love this season that I could have never fully anticipated. I’ve been able to maintain old traditions and create new ones, share my own culture, and learn more about Armenia. I remember at the start of this project, I wrote about Christmas being about finding a light in the darkness. That has held true for me this season but in slightly different ways. I’ve learned over this holiday season, that the light I find myself searching for when things seem dark, will not just appear for me out of nowhere. It’s not something I can sit and wait for. I have to go out and create it; by sharing my light with others and allowing them to share it with me, by being open to new experiences, and by holding onto my traditions while also recognizing when it’s time to let go. 

2023 has been the most life-altering year for me yet, in many ways. After the constant change and newness of this past year, I’m ready for this next year to be one of hard work, steadiness, and deepening of my integration here. 2024 will be the year of my service that I spend entirely living in Armenia. With that daunting but exciting reality laid out before me, I’m excited to close last year’s chapter and start anew. I hope that you all have enjoyed this account of a very Peace Corps Christmas spent in Armenia. Շնորհավոր Նոր Տարի and talk soon!