Everything we’d planned to do for Christmas was delayed by a day. My sister and her family had vacationed out of the country and were supposed to fly back into Reagan International Airport around midnight; so I purposely flew in late to rendezvous with them at the airport. As soon as I landed, not only were no red-wine-serving restaurants open, but my family was stranded and I had to get a room at hotel for the night.

En route to the hotel suggested by my sister, the cab driver double checked the address with me, which I thought was strange, but when I looked it up on my phone, the words

PERMANENTLY CLOSED 

appeared on the screen. To cross check, I input the street address and discovered the name of the hotel had changed because a new chain bought them out. Yet, once we arrived in the dark parking lot with construction material in the driveway, I requested the cab driver to take me to the next nearest hotel. Although he offered to drive me to 3-4 other hotels, I’m sure with the meter running, I said I’d check the availability at the next hotel and stay there.

Not only did the next hotel have a room, but I had 30 minutes to order room service. I was so tired and hungry, I kept apologizing to the front desk guy in between food- and sleep-deprived giggles. I ordered a lump crab cake burger with sweet potato fries and a glass of Malbec as part of my check in.

When the food arrived, I propped it on the bed and devoured it before I knew what was what. On my first flight, I’d only had a cup of apple juice and on my second flight a cup of water with a sad bag of pretzels.

I slept like a baby, worked out in the morning like a rockstar and then had a fabulous breakfast. Later on, I reunited with my family, who had a similar starvation story to mine the night before.

When we got to their house, there was a flurry of activity needed to be done, first of which was clearing junk from some areas of the house to other areas. It was quite a feat of physics. Afterwards, all the guest beds had to be made since my parents, my other sister and her son would be arriving later on in the day. Plus my nephew and brother-in-law had to go out and get a tree. This had been the latest they’d ever bought a tree–two days before Christmas.

Magically, among all the cleaning and rearranging, my nephew still found a creative moment to put together this ensemble as if he were a weary traveler when in fact, he was merely taking all of the items he was wearing and the bottle of rum to another location of the house. Since he’s never met a camera he didn’t like, he willingly posed for this picture.

By Christmas Eve, the tree was finally decorated and all the gifts were around it. My sister, who hadn’t slept a wink from Christmas Eve until mid Christmas Day last year, managed to catch a few hours of sleep before breakfast was served.

A few years ago, my nieces and nephews were too old to excitedly wake up on Christmas morning and open their gifts. Thus, starting the wonderful tradition of eating breakfast before our gift exchange. As usual, we adults ate first and slowly the kids woke up and ate.

At that time, my sister was on her Christmas morning nap and I did some editing work.

By late Christmas morning, the “kids” were in position for the gift exchange.

They just had to wait patiently for the rest of us.

I think the best gift was spending lots of laughs with family.

I can’t say what prompted this pose other than general Christmas Day silliness, but I know that family time has become more precious now that both of my nieces are in college.

Of course once my brother-in-law saw the incomplete family portrait, he joined in.

The second best gift was the digestive medicinals I gave Mom. She is the Queen of Home Remedies, so I knew she’d get a kick out of the digestive bitters. After trying a few drops of all three, she claimed that she felt tipsy. I just laughed at her, read the ingredients and discovered they all contained vodka. One of my nieces and I had multiple drops to no effect.

We all tore into an edible arrangement basket–our midday snack. None of us felt we could partake of it until my sister stopped frisking around to enjoy it as well.

How blessed we were to have OG Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus celebrating with us.

Funniest thing about this picture was that Mom and probably just finished nagging my niece about something, but paused to make this pose look warm and fuzzy.

On Boxing Day, my niece was supposed to get her applications together for graduate school, but was preoccupied with selfies and texting to concentrate. (As if I’m the one to talk. I like writing with the TV on!) She airdropped this picture “just to see if it would work,” while I edited. Despite what she said, I think she just wanted to see how tech savvy I was.

I confirmed that I received it, but encouraged her to complete her application since I wanted her to get into either Houston or Denver, and then I offered to help her drive cross country if either of those things happened.

On our final night together, we ate at a restaurant that was inspired by Langston Hughes. At one point, I saw a Black woman walk toward our table, stop in her tracks, double over looking at me, then put her hands on her cheeks as she advanced toward me saying my name. At that point, I went from bracing myself for a confrontation to leaping from my seat to embrace a friend I hadn’t seen since we’d both moved away from Honduras nine years ago.

As we embraced one another, one of my sisters took a picture of us. My long-lost friend then introduced me to her brother, cousin, fiancé and a friend. Then she excitedly told them that I was going to the wedding. I just smiled because in actuality my attendance at her wedding depends on whether or not I have to help my niece drive cross country.

Nonetheless, she was my Christmas miracle.

Halloween has long been my favorite holiday from childhood to adulthood unlike any other.  So when a friend suggested we go to one of the classic, interactive non-horror Halloween movies at my favorite movie theatre, I readily agreed. The theatre even provided a goodie bag to go along with the movie–very smart move. I wasn’t the least surprised that the goodie bag didn’t contain rice nor fine confetti.  Imagine the clean up!

With a third of my closet dedicated to costumes, I wasn’t the least bit pressed about being a particular character.  I just pulled together most of my Mad Hatter costume with the notable exception of the hat and the functional addition of my slick black raincoat.  Even though the theatre gave us newspapers, they also gave us water guns. I made sure to fill mine up with water since I wasn’t going to enter this water gun fight with a dry gun. That would be un-Texan.

I hadn’t seen this movie in such a long time that it was almost like seeing again for the first time, yet I’d seen it at least twice before. I’d really wanted to do the Time Warp, especially since we sat on the front row and didn’t have to travel far to dance. I got sidelined by my chicken wings that arrived a few minutes prior to that famous scene.

Despite the mostly young crowd, there were some of us who have remained young at heart and knew many of things to shout out at the screen. We’d had a talking to prior to the movie, which basically said don’t squirt or throw anything at the servers and don’t shout out continuously throughout the movie.

I’m so happy everyone participated without getting out of hand and since this was a musical, we sang along throughout the movie. This may become my new Halloween celebration tradition, especially when Halloween falls on a weeknight.

“We the People,” “We the American People,” should be an inclusive phrase, but far too often is synonymous with “White People,” but it shouldn’t be an exclusive phrase, according to The Constitution of the United States. Some American People don’t acknowledge or fail to realize that The Constitution is both a historical and living document. It is not written upon stone, but rather hemp. Words written upon stone tablets are set in place. Hemp, however, is a plant product. As anyone with a green thumb can tell you, when you nurture your plants, they will grow and thrive, just like our Constitution, just like our country. The very reason our Constitution has amendments is so it can be changed through thoughtful process as we nurture our country for its continued growth and success.

Founded upon the notion of freedom yet, historically bound by the ties of discrimination by our founding fathers, who were not gods, but merely a reflection of the prejudices of their time. Over time, we’ve held truths to be self-evident that all people, inclusively, are created equal and deserve equal protection under the law.

What have the women and men of the armed forces fought for if not our constitutional rights? When we face injustice, We the American People, inclusively, have a right to protest peacefully, but for People of Color, the dominant narrative doesn’t want us to protest at all. There’s never a good time for us to protest.  It’s always too soon or somehow, ironically, unpatriotic. The American People, exclusively, only want People of Color to protest on our own time, and where no one can see nor hear us.

Even when we’re not protesting, but in the course of doing some everyday activity, People of Color may find ourselves immersed in an impromptu protest when suddenly accosted by a White person who sees the color of their skin as a badge of authority and permission to interrogate a Person of Color whose skin they see as probable cause. I’ll know that the dominant narrative is becoming a little less racist when the media starts questioning why a stranger thinks they have the authority to accost and interrogate any Person of Color who happens to cross their path.

I used to marvel how young people could hold such racist ideas as I would associate with an older person. Then I realized that was just me being an ageist. I also used to have this bias that “cultural inheritance” was this positive thing and that only uncultured people were racist, but that was me using a narrow definition of “culture.” The truth is, Grandma’s secret recipe for apple pie is passed down to the younger generations along with her racism.

One family tradition could be covering up racism like hastily tossing a beautiful thick throw rug over dog shit just before the guests arrive, then pretending that it no longer exists because it’s no longer seen, but the family knows it’s there because they pivot to avoid stepping in it. If a guest or friend, unaware of the family tradition, detects the stench of racism, they family is offended, embarrassed.

Why look at how clean this beautiful throw rug is! How dare you say it stinks. You must be smelling something else.

If the unaware accidently steps in racism, the family denies the experience. Why that’s just the way this throw rug is made. Ya’ll must make your throw rugs differently where you’re from, but why don’t you just stand over here if it’ll make you feel more comfortable?

So, we’re sidestepping shit, covering up shit, politely not talking about shit and surprise, surprise it doesn’t go away. The stench lingers because fresh shit’s applied every day. Growing and nurturing the products of racism with roots so deep, they extend back down to when one’s ancestors were immigrants to this land themselves. Or slaves.

All those multi-colored huddled masses wave after wave, seeking a better life in the land of opportunity. Hungry for a seat at the table, but they don’t come empty handed. They bring the flavors of their grandmother’s secret recipes to the pot luck. Remember back in the day when we used to kid ourselves that We the American People were one big melting pot? As any good cook will tell you, you can’t throw EVERYTHING into the pot and expect it to taste good. Some ingredients will clash.

What you can do is offer a variety of dishes on a buffet, then have a taste of different things. After all, isn’t variety the spice of life? But for every Epicurean, there’s always a meat and potato person who just loathes spicy food.

The question is: which one is more patriotic? The very manner in which you answer that question reveals how you view what it means to be We the American People. For example, on the surface, you may find it ridiculous to argue whether real chili has beans, but while in Texas, I’d advise you to say it doesn’t, which is in agreement with the Texas House Concurrent Resolution No. 18, 65^thLegislature, Regular Session in 1977. If you want to go a step further, call it chili con carne, even if that’s the only Spanish you speak because for the ancestral Mexican women who created this dish, the border crossed them, not the other way around.

And yet…some people would become hotter than chili con carne at the mere suggestion that this is a Mexican dish rather than a Texan dish after all everyone knows Texas chili has no beans, which was resolved in legislature. And while we’re at it, let’s throw in a pinch of cultural appropriation and a dash of historical omissions, stir slowly from the bottom as it simmers with unacknowledged racism, sexism and any other –ism the PC detectives uncover because isn’t that the American way? We’re not going to acknowledge anything bad unless the pot boils over, or its contents gives us the shits or the shit hits the fan because that’s also the American way.

We the People, We the American People. Grateful for our freedom and to those who have sworn to defend our Constitution and fight enemies foreign and domestic. The very least We the American People can do to honor our veterans is contribute to and nurture a society worthy of their sacrifice.