Holiday Thoughts

   November is a month that held a lot of importance to me at home for many reasons, and I have been thinking a lot about that.  My little brother, Dad's, and best friend's birthdays are all in November. Thanksgiving is this month, and I have many Thanksgiving memories from home that hold a lot of significance for me. Many of these memories are with my family at home in Maine. Something I've been thinking more about lately is the first major holiday I ever spent away from my family, which was Christmas a few years ago when I worked in Boston at a residential treatment center for teenage girls. I remember feeling really sad that I couldn't spend Christmas with my family, but I also remember learning what a beautiful experience spending Christmas in a different setting can be. There were 18 girls that lived in the program that I worked in.. Some of them could go home for a few days to celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah with their families, many had passes for Christmas day itself and had to be back that evening, and others didn't have anywhere to go for the holidays. Staff had a shopping day for the kids during which we were each assigned a kid, their wish list, and given money to spend on them. Our program was going through a difficult time that year with a lot of very challenging kids so it was nice to have a day of focusing on the positive. I worked Christmas Eve and a double on Christmas so I got to see all of the kids open their gifts, some of whom never were given presents before and were very excited. On Christmas day there were only two kids left in the program all day who didn't have anywhere to go. One of them had just gotten placed on Christmas eve and was a high run risk so I spent some of the day sitting and playing cards with her and watching her to make sure she wasn't trying to run. The other had been in and out of hospitals and programs for much of her childhood, had been with us at this program for a while, and just had no where to go on Christmas. I got to take her to the movies for the afternoon. I will never forget how she kept saying " I can't believe you are here on Christmas to hang out with me when you probably have a good family!". She was so excited just to have someone paying attention to her and that she was getting to go see a movie. I helped make dinner with remaining kids and staff and we ate together.  When kids returned from their day passes I listened to them talk about home; some of their days had not gone so well so as a staff team we worked to deescalate them after their tough days. I ended the night going to the hospital with one of the kids who was sick and sat in the hospital all night with her. I was completely exhausted.
   That was one of the toughest but most rewarding experiences I have ever had, and I will never ever forget it. I know that being all the way in Botswana for the holidays will be a very different experience than being at work in Boston, but I'm hoping that even though I anticipate it being difficult that it is also as beautiful of an experience as the one I have just written about.