Welcome to the fourth installment of 'Meet The Reporter,' the Holiday Special!
(*yes, in this house, we celebrate Life Day)

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As per usual, this is our monthly series where we here at ASU Odyssey want to give you a bit of insight into our lives, and this time it's all about the holidays, specifically the winter variety.

I'm much more of a Halloween or Thanksgiving fan, but the holidays have always been a fun time for me. My whole family is Jewish, so Hanukkah has always been prevalent this time of year. But I also celebrate Christmas because my grandma throws a party every year to bring the family together. As such, it's always been a time of celebration with family, and I've always liked it for that.

It seems that as the years have gone on, there have been select memories about the holidays that have distinctly stuck with me. These include decorating the Christmas tree with our grandma with ornaments that we made in our elementary school classrooms, playing basketball with our cousins (and always winding up on the losing team), and, of course, having a Christmas dinner of Chinese food because what else would we have?

This year was different, as it was the first time I had to be away from my family due to work reasons during the holidays. I was happy to be furthering my career, but when you think of "becoming an adult," putting work over celebrating holidays is usually something most people would dread.

But it also wasn't nearly the loss that I thought it would be, as I had friends who were in the same position as me who were willing to grab holiday brunch or go see a movie. In addition, while I did miss Christmas and wasn't able to go home altogether, I was able to see my family in Palm Springs for a day, and that was pretty much as delightful as I could have hoped for.

I think this year is going to wind up feeling pretty pivotal in hindsight. For so long, I've always associated the winter holidays with a certain thing, and this year, they were many things; different things, but still varied. As such, as sad as I am that I didn't get to experience some of the things I've loved and cherished over my life, I also didn't feel nearly as isolated or disappointed as I thought I would. I suppose that's just another installment in the theme of "life changes but you don't have to go kicking and screaming" that comes with growing up (if that makes even an iota of sense).

So enjoy the holidays if you can, even if it's not the way you'd hoped it would be.

...hey, the holidays are pretty cheesy, so I have leeway to be just as much.

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