Coast-to-Coast Christmas

Merry Christmas! Merry post-Xmas Discount Shopping Day! I hope you’ve had a warm, pleasant and meaningful holiday.

I’m currently hanging with my future in-laws, a.k.a. Deepak’s parents. We’ve had a relaxing visit thus far.

Small sampling of activities: visiting with Deepak’s best friend of 20+ years (and much-appreciated Facebook liker of Violet on Orange!) Jed, and my first meeting with his lovely wife Seong Hee; visiting both Deepak’s and my childhood homes (both are in New England; in fact, we’ve calculated that we overlapped living in the Boston area in 1992-1993); so many Dunkin Donuts.

Xmas Eve, we celebrated with a lovingly prepared and delectable feast at my beloved aunt and uncle’s home. In addition to loving them anyway because they’re family, Deepak and I enjoy visiting with them because of our shared appreciation for fitness, drinking, travel and South Bay living (now that I type them all out — are each of these items interrelated?).

Our uncle, over it all and onto the iPad.

Yearly tradition: Deepak’s interrogation by my aunt (“I got onto you last year because you weren’t engaged. Now I want a baby.”)

On Xmas, Deepak and I continued our year-old tradition of flying cross-country.

“Meet us on Minutemen”

It’s a bit sad, and I’m sure my mom blanches at the blasphemy of Xmas Day flying, but it’s hard to beat the cheap fare, low hassle factor at the airport and general conviviality during the generally uncomfortable cross-country trip. On the plus side, we did spy Santa in the air, coming back from his extremely wearying global present delivery night.

Please refrain from stealing Logan airport’s bathroom nosegay.

(While boarding, I saw a man ask the flight attendant for dramamine. She couldn’t help, but she did offer a sympathetic grimace and free small bottle of Tito’s vodka. This reminds me of how my dad, a lifelong teetotaler, nonetheless brings me back handfuls of airplane-sized booze bottles after all his international airplane trips, since he just can’t pass up a freebie.)

I may’ve shaken the gift exchange gifts a bit too hard.

Triumphant

Afterward, we landed, a bit tired and as grungy as you might expect after having dressed for two climates (81°F when we left LAX; 14°F when we landed at Logan).

But rest was not to be had, as we began to hear whispers of perhaps the scariest words you can hear after making such a grimy, tiring trip. What they said: “We’re throwing you an impromptu sangeet!”

The name and the religion! I also took a photo by this sign to celebrate our future. Even though I love the sentiment, I'm not including it here because my post-transcontinental flight vibe was ROUGH.

Jain: the name and the religion! I also took a photo of myself by this sign to celebrate our future. Even though I love the sentiment, I’m not including it here because my post-transcontinental flight vibe was ROUGH.

A sangeet is a Punjabi version of a bridal shower, basically. Or: a way to make tired, dirty engaged people and force them to attempt a Bollywood dance down an impromptu Soul Train line.

A sangeet is a Punjabi version of a bridal shower, basically. Or: a way to make corner tired, dirty engaged people and force them to attempt a Bollywood dance down an impromptu Soul Train line.