Keeping it real

In attempts to keep it real over here. here's a little insight into a not-so-great day that I had the other day. 

I've been trying to do little Christmas activities every day to get us in the spirit.  It's been great and despite the fact that I think I'll be extremely homesick on the actual holiday, I'm looking forward to a big Christmas dinner on base and day full of Christmas movies with Mike.  Despite the fact that I have been enjoying all of the Christmas activities we've been doing, I got a little overwhelmed/homesick and had a self-proclaimed "I hate Turkey" day.  Sometimes you just need those, I guess. 

First of all, I always have a little bit of a slump when we come back from traveling somewhere like France, where there is order and structure and things are so similar to our life at home.  Turkey has it's own strengths, but it's very different from home and sometimes it's hard to come back to all of it's uniqueness.  

My "I hate Turkey day" started when I got home from Turkish class.  I had a lot to do that day and I had to work that night.  The first thing on my to-do list was to make a Christmas tree out of wine corks.  We had super glue and it seemed like an easy enough project for a non-crafty person like myself. You literally just stack the corks in the shape of a Christmas tree and glue them together.  Unfortunately, the super glue wasn't drying fast enough for my liking and things were falling apart.  Add in the fact that my fingers were getting stuck together every five minutes and I was a hot mess. I just kept muttering "stupid Turkish glue" even though I'm pretty sure the super glue was from the American commissary.

After I temporarily gave up on the cork Christmas tree, I tried to make an ornament from flour, salt and water that you bake in the oven, but when I would roll it out, it would get stuck to the cutting board and then get messed up when I would try and move it to the cookie sheet.  I didn't have anything Turkish to blame this one on, but you better believe I tried.

Needless to say, I was a hot mess.  After a few tears and a lot of hugs, we figured out how to get the ornament to hold it's shape and the glue to hold the corks together.  I still wasn't in the best mood, but then I remembered that my mom had sent us a package full of Christmas goodies.  There was cookie and brownie mix, frosting, sprinkles and some Christmas oven mitts and dish towels.  She's the best!  It was the perfect time to open it and then make some Christmas cookies.

So, that's a little peak into the not-so-perfect life over here.  We are enjoying this kind of weird/non-traditional Christmas season here, but it's definitely not all jingle bells and Christmas cookies.  I know that, even if I was in the United States, I probably would have had the same struggles and I really can't blame anything on Turkey, but I don't think it was about the super glue. It was a culmination of a lot of little things that are different this holiday season.  Luckily, the mood was short lived and I've gotten back into my routine and am feeling better about this whole Turkish Christmas thing.