ESL teacher and au pair Rease Kirchner celebrating Christmas in Buenos Aires
For my first Christmas away from home, I planned a busy trip to ward off holiday homesickness, and surrounded myself with non-Christmasy things: A tropical beach! Distracting scubadiving lessons! Buddhist travelmates who won’t hum carols or pine aloud for homemade turkey! I reckoned that I couldn’t miss Christmas that year if it just didn’t happen.