The weekend before Christmas!

This weekend was wonderful.
My Christmas weekend with the Wittenbergs. We won't get to spend Christmas eve together, so luckily we found time to be together this weekend before my departure to Bekah in Michigan.

*

I am starring out into the night from the window on the plane. It's already dark - it's by the end of the day, around 5, but I have a whole travel ahead of me. With one stop in Detroit.

Lights from the city are in the far distance, like small dots, like small fairies.
Man, I'm so tired - just fell asleep for a second!
Maybe it's because I just finished my chocolate - almost half a bag of maltesers. Dropping my energy just after it's sugary klimax :p.
I have had chocolate or sweets every day, ever since my holiday started. Almost as if I switched to a new religion.. seriously I let myself go all bananas in the American style!

Seriously - why aren't we moving. We are more than 1 hour late for departure, and I have just about 1 our in between the arrival and boarding for the second flight - I'm starting to get concerned.
But no matter how stressed I get, - it always works out.

"Another 20 minutes" - that was just announced by the captain. Anyhow I'll se Bekah tonight! It's the best Christmas gift I've ever had.

I just spoke with Susan before boarding the plane. She asked for the recipe of a Danish tradition that me and my mum shared with the Wittenberg's for the Thanksgiving weekend.

The lights are so pretty. Finally in the air. I just saw the Empire state building from the air. I could see the Christmas special lights show on the top. This light - red and green.

Now it's all black, we've flown through the clouds and I get to look back on the past couple of days.
It truly has been a wonderful weekend, just being able to see the family, feeling blessed in their presence.

Friday:

"AAARRHRRHRHHRRHHHHH!! I'M ON HOLIDAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!"
- Friday the 20th of December 3pm
"I am so happy!"

....When I was off from school that afternoon at 3 pm, I was so thrilled I could have peed my pants! Just relieved. I imagined I would collapse on the bed and just lie there crying out my stress, and all the things and pressure from the first semester of America's most intensive musical theatre program.

But when I got home, I needed to clean my room, prep things ready for when I return to school after the holidays (so it wouldn't be such a headache, when I got back ), say goodbye and merry Christmas to the neighbors, pack my suitcase, write 2 assignments for performance lab, but I also had one thing I wanted to be able to prioritize into my program.
I'd been given 2 flower bouquets for my effort setting up the children's Christmas play Tuesday night (The Christmas play that I have been setting up for the children from the hmw club in the Salvation Army, all through December, every Tuesday and Friday afternoon straight after school. I wrote the script and directed it.).
They both still looked pretty. I wanted to bring one back to my family's house - the beautiful bouquet that Susan had given me, and the other one I wanted to put by my grandma's bench.

'I love you with all the strings of my heart'

They had such a beautiful smell

It was really special to be able to do that. Almost like putting flowers on her grave.
Only that this wasn't for a body that was gone, this was for the presence of her soul.
It was a gesture of love, so that her favorite spot felt warm and pretty. Not a gesture from grief to mourn over, remembering someone who's gone.

I know that she's not here, but she can now see everything I do, from heaven.
From there, she will smile and celebrate with me, I know.
Even if she won't actually sit on her bench, the light that she shines on earth with will glow on the bench and all around.
And what's not more pretty than a bench decorated with flowers, bathed in sunlight.

*

I just got a cookie and a sprite on the plane - for free! I can only remember getting food for free on a short trip, when I was 8 and flew alone up to my grandparent's in Finland, Estonia and Norway.

This brings me to some very big news (just because I thought of my grandparent's service in the salvation army through the years). I have decided to become a soldier in the Salvation Army, here at the Hempstead corps. Becoming a part of the Salvation Army has been something that's been in the back of my mind over the past years, but coming here, feeling God's work in me, and acknowledging my new-found great love in him, growing every time I go to a Sunday meeting in the Salvation Army, I finally decided that nothing would feel more right that finally being enrolled.

Wow - looking out the window I now see the stars in the sky. So pretty!

*

I was picked up by the Wittenberg's around 9pm, just as I was about to wrap up their Christmas presents. Walking down 14th street with one heavy suitcase packed, ready for Michigan on Monday, a heavy bag packed with Christmas presents for the family , and flowers in the other hand - I walked my steps down the road, one more joyous than the other.

*

Right now I am flying over something that looks like the shape of Australia. But I betcha bottom dollar that's not Australia.. :p I feel excited about flying around in the States though.. in my new country.
It is weird to acknowledge that the last time I was on a plane, it was on my way to USA for the first time. Long trip. Long step forward. Long ago, age-wise... but only just 4 months ago, is that not incredible? I find it so hard to believe all that I've seen in the last few months. It's not like I've seen the world, but I sure have seen myself.

I've now stepped into my second flight. An even smaller plane than the first one, and the first one was small! It almost looked like a private jet. First one had a total of about 60 people aboard, I think. This one has about 45!
I am sitting by the window.. really cold! wrapping the new salvation army blanket around me, that I got from the corps Sunday morning. When I walked down the tube that led to the plane, I could see my breath as a white cloud every time I exhaled. And when I inhaled I felt the knifes of the cold that causes my asthma.. yep I sure am close to Canada. This is Michigan (look it up on a map, it's far up north of the States)!
Now I am on a 1 hour plane trip to South bend, which is in the state Illinois, south west to Michigan :) Bekah's house is a half hour car ride away from the house.

*

On my way to the Wittenberg house, I wrote an assignment that I had to turn in for school Sunday at the latest.. I really didn't want to be drowning in homework for my weekend with the family. my goal was to write the 1000 word essay before reaching the house - I wrote about 700 when we'd got there, which I thought was pretty well done. I finished it in the house later on that night.. so when I arrived at the house, instead of making that collapse and release of stress that I mentioned earlier, I hurried to the couch and typed as fast as I could. I wanted that release, but I couldn't release myself from the weight of the first semester before having done all my hmw from it.

Saturday:

The next morning I woke up and was just extremely cheerful, realizing how free I now was. And that's honestly how it's been - I have been in chains for a semester. not bad chains, but difficult and challenging chains. the ones that kept me from doing anything but what I signed up for. weekend weren't weekends, but time for hmw, rehearsals.. and if I was lucky, cleaning and grocery shopping. There has not been a minute of absolute recharge .. so after 4 months..omgosh DO I NEED IT!

But I woke up with that cheerful feeling, slowly waking up at 9 am :o wow... record in months! Listening to Disney music, video chatting with one of my best friends who's still in Copenhagen and having breakfast in bed.
...So after now 3 nights, I never got that release that I thought I needed.. maybe it'll come later. I sure will let out some tears, when I see Bekah, that's for sure!

Saturday was just a doing nothing day - truly . I went out with Susan to buy the missing thread that I need for my cross stitch project. There was grocery shopping to do, things to get and return. Christmas shopping was the word! .. for everyone!.. meaning the traffic was ridiculous, so the trip to town took hours.. but I really loved this part of the day most of all, because being stuck in a car with Susan, it meant that we had time to talk with each other.. a quality there's ironically not time for very often. That's what it's like to grow up and have a tight schedule! ;)

Saturday night I helped Susan and Phil count the money from kettles that day, at the corps.

After that we went home and watched Home alone. Yuppii!! Susan knew I needed to watch this to make my Christmas days complete, so she had found it on netflix and downloaded it, ready for this weekend. :)



Sunday:

Church meeting at Hempstead citadel. I sang at church this morning :) A very moving and beautiful song called 'The Father's song'. That same morning it was announced that I will be enrolled as a soldier at the corps in the year to come. Something big to look forward to with a blessed soul for the new year.

After the church meeting, we had lunch with the rest of the corps, and we prepped for our nursing home visits that afternoon. We were going to 3 different nursing homes carolling and spreading joy to the elderly, and giving out Christmas presents to each and every one of them.
I was so glad to participate in that, just doing something for other with a great heart. Being able to dedicate my whole day to that felt really special, because even though I have the heart to do so, I have never in my life had a schedule that could fit in voluntary work.. silly it sounds, I know. If I have ever worked it has been a need, in order to pay for my dance classes to prepare for the musical auditions.
As I am writing this, I kind of hear it echoing in my ear, in a shameful way.. that's no excuse. So I am glad that this time could be the first.
I am glad that I have been able to spend time doing the activities in the Salvation Army, before committing myself to it, wanting to be a strong carrier of the uniform.

Sunday after this visit, we came home to an excellent pot of homemade meatballs. And then we chilled and chilled.. watching Home alone 2, Charlie Brown and Jack Frost.. all Christmas movies.




Charlie Brown's christmas. First time I watched this show
- one thing you need to have seen as American!


A newly discovered great Christmas movie

I made our Portuguese dessert 'Salam de chocolate' (a cookie chocolate sausage).

This is almost what it looked like

- only there were less biscuits in mine!

Monday:

Monday morning was early, because I wanted to get up at the same time as Susan, to be with her in the morning, before she drove off to work. We read the psalms in the one year bible, all the way to the end of the year. Blessed.

I had a long morning in the shower listening to the soundtrack of 'The Sound of music', and 'Wicked'. Best thing about having time in the morning, is having time to find the right clothes for you.. not just any wear, and choosing perfume and jewelry. .. I am not allowed to wear perfume in school and I usually have time to look neatly at my earrings in the weekend and then wear the same pair of earrings for a whole week.. if not none at all!.. I finished packing my suitcase and videochatted with my parents and all my siblings - except Catarina who was at the Christmas ball at the Royal ballet school (yep it truly is as fancy as it sounds ;) I heard that she was beautiful like an angel in the Nutcracker when my family saw her earlier on this week.


My hope is to see the Nutcracker at the New York City Ballet when I come back. I wanted to go in December at some point, but time ran out of my hands.

I am landing in South Bend. Should see Bekah in 30 minutes! So let me get back to you.. I want to shut down my computer now to process and prepare myself for this big upcoming event!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! X