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Posted on Fri, Dec 31, 2010 : 10 a.m.

Hometown holidays: Pigs in a blanket and sparkling cider are a few of my family's portable holiday traditions

By Benjamin Verdi

Asking me to write about what the holiday season in my hometown is like asking Meryl Streep what it felt like the time she won that Oscar. That is, the hardest part about this task for me is picking a hometown to write about. I’ve lived in Virginia, in Maryland three different times, New York City for about eight years, California for a couple, New Mexico for another, and spent a few weeks “living” with my dad in a suburb of Boston.

Thus, when I sit down to write about what the holidays are like where I’m from, certain parts of this assignment are harder for me than they are for most.

So, to make things easier, I’ll focus on the place that comes to mind fastest when I’m asked about home. That place is Long Island, N.Y., more specifically the town of Brentwood, where my dad grew up and my grandparents still live. It's where I return every holiday season with my parents and uncles and aunts and cousins and you name it, to eat, laugh and exchange gifts.

Despite being an hour outside New York City, we rarely partake in the things people associate with the region and the holidays. For example, only sparingly do we travel to see the tree at Rockefeller Center because of what a madhouse it always is, jammed in tight with people from all over the world, all with their own definition of personal space and all kinds of schedules to keep as they snap a few shots of their loved ones by the tree and then use any means necessary to escape the mob surrounding them who all want the same thing.

Same goes for ice skating in the park, something most people do in their hometowns around the holidays. In New York, unless you want to shell out $40 for skates, ice time and a locker for your shoes and belongings (the locker is not an option), you won’t get to experience a cute little holiday tradition that most of the country partakes in for free on the nearest frozen body of water.

Also — to my knowledge — no one in my family, (and no real New Yorker in history) has ever gone to see the ball drop in Times Square. But that’s because no New Yorkers in my family are pickpockets or sell fake fats or copies of their own mixtape.

It’s not a normal place to try to celebrate the holidays because of how many people from other hometowns think it’s the best place. But I’d just as soon give up all the things that get put on TV about New York City’s holiday traditions if I could keep the small amount of time I get with my family every winter out on Long Island.

That said, even with our unspoken commitment to return to Long Island every holiday season, we (myself and my parents) still don’t always make it, and have to improvise in terms of what to do during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve away from “home.” While I’m always somewhat disappointed at these moments, and I don’t get my small semblance of “hometown” at the end of the year, I’ve learned that these are the occurences when I’ve actually ended up having the most holiday fun.

We could’ve gone home to New York for Christmas the year we lived in New Mexico, but then I would’ve never seen the beautiful Christmas Eve display that they put on in downtown Santa Fe. We could’ve done the same thing the years we spent in Maryland in our various townhouses, but then I wouldn’t have ever known about the houselight competitions that take place in the various neighborhoods there, nor would I have ever seen the unconventionally nautical ways people celebrate the holidays in cities like Annapolis, Alexandria, and the other beautiful places we’ve visited along the water.

However, despite all our moving, it seems that no matter where I spend the holidays, I do end up repeating a few unshakeable traditions. I always get to catch up with my parents. My dog Alex. We always eat ham in the middle of the afternoon on Christmas Day. We always make pigs in a blanket on New Years Eve. I always drink too much of that Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider even though I’m old enough to drink real champagne. It always makes me a little sick, and I have to eat a few more pigs in a blanket to settle my stomach down. And this year Michigan’s football team is doing this weird thing where we play what’s called a “bowl game” on New Years Day. I think it’d be cool if they made that a yearly occurrence.

It’s taken me long enough, but I think by now I get it that no matter where I am, the holidays still happen. Even though it’s been a weird road, I still have a tradition of celebrating the holidays as passionately and fully as possible.

It is my belief that the holidays, and our faith in general, should be things that are constantly changing — that we find everywhere, not just around familiar faces — always growing, always traveling new places to find something new about that place, which (if it hasn’t been one of mine) is most surely somebody else’s hometown.

Ben Verdi is a man with a Bible and a laptop and a nasty curveball. He can be reached at jetboiz@aol.com