New Years is often qualified as one of the most overrated holidays. After all, we could decide that the New Year starts in March instead of on January 1st. It seems to be a rather arbitrary decision. (If you want to know why New Years happens to be on January 1st, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm5E1v6Svls) On top of that, it tends to be a time where people decide to “change themselves,” yet they fall off the bandwagon a few weeks into the new year. Yet, even considering all this, New Years is still my favorite holiday. It’s the time of year when the of the extended family on my father’s side gets together to make far too much noise and piss off a lot of hotel staff. (Sorry for the broken couch,the hole in the wall, the piñatas, the floors we’ve taken over for meals and secret santa exchanges, the hundred-yes, I mean hundreds-of noise complaints, and all the other stuff we’ve done through the years. I don’t regret any of it. I’m just sorry that we’ve been such an inconvenience.)
For me, New Years to me has never been about the resolutions or the passing of time. New Years has been about family and getting to spend time with my cousins. This was the first year ever that I wasn't able to celebrate with them. This year I was able to celebrate with my new family as we traveled to the north of Thailand to watch the sunrise over Laos on the top of a mountain. We shopped, ate, went to temples, and enjoyed each other’s company. Although I missed the celebration that was happening in Wisconsin, I felt so honored to be able to celebrate with my host family and to truly be part of the family. On top of that, my host family helped me live out a dream of mine. *sings* I’ve got a dream. I’ve got a dream. I just want to see the floating lanterns gleam.
I’ve always been a Disney fanatic. My cello teacher used to say that the first memory of me she has is me talking about how much I love Disney. Needless to say, I ended up playing a lot of Disney cello music with her, much to my delight. When Tangled came out as Disney’s 50th animated feature, I was hooked. I knew I had found my favorite movie, and I knew that I wanted to send a floating lantern into the sky. I never knew when or how I was going to do this, I just knew it had to happen, and so on January 2nd, 2016, it finally did. I sent 5 floating lanterns into the sky and lived out my dream of being Rapunzel for a day. My host family shared this annual tradition of theirs with me and helped me accomplish a life dream, so even though I was missing an experience back home with my family, I know I have a second family here in Thailand that I will always be apart of; they helped me achieve a dream and gave me a New Years that I’ll never forget.
Sam