Nico is from Canada. He likes to say "where comedy was invented".
Being from Canada, Nico has an idea of how things should be because "Canada is more advanced". While universal healthcare and a free University education are great things, I put the breaks on the idea of moving there for one huge reason: you have to plug in your car during the winter. It's not 'put on those mittens!' cold, it's 'plug in your car at night so it doesn't freeze solid' cold. Nico has been trying to drag me up North for a winter visit, but I try to tell him that it's better in the summer. So we spend July swimming in the lakes of Quebec, and we spend Christmas in LA, where I grew up.
In Canada, you can expect a white christmas. Families celebrate the season by skating on the canals drinking hot cider and eating 'beaver tails' (Canada's answer to the Churro, or fried dough with sugar). There are snow men, snow angels, snowy trees, real icicles and broken water pipes. It's minus 10 (celsius, of course) but that doesn't include the wind chill factor!
But in Los Angeles... Christmas day is (almost) always 72 degrees- and sunny.
How many Christmas afternoons have I spent with my toes in the sand, sliding down a sand burm or even kayaking on the canal? Riding a shiny new bike along leafy sidewalks, the winter sun warming my back.
Driving down through the suburbs of Long Beach, Nico chats with his mom in Ottawa. "It just doesn't feel like Christmas" he laments to her. In the suburbs of Long Beach, most folks decorate their houses with lights strung along the eaves, imitating icicles. There are inflatable snow men, flocked trees and rooftops, mechanical wire reindeer that bend down to eat green lawn and look up to watch cars go by. Cut paper snowflakes taped to the windows with care. Like many things in LA, it just feels "artificial". He says that Christmas is supposed to be snowy, cold and white. But I counter- why? Because North America sees it that way? What about Chrismas in Australia? Do their Christmas cards show Santa at the Bar-B-Que drinking lemonade? Are there beach scenes with red and white bikinis? Do kids unwrap boogie boards and eat popsicles? In Australia, do they put inflatable snow men in the yard to fall in line with what suburban North America expects Christmas to look like? I doubt it. LA- embrace who you really are! Wear your sunshine with pride! Make sand castles, sand angels, decorate your palm trees with lights, hang stockings on your air conditioners and drink lemonade on the beach.
