I’m currently sitting at the British Airways lounge at JFK airport, waiting for our flight to LA en route to Sydney and then Melbourne. I am surrounded by gold and red Christmas decorations (maybe the people who did the decorating were Chinese?), Christmas trees, and a calming fountain, not to mention trays and trays of gourmet finger sandwiches – this is like tea party heaven. United has a lot to learn about how to design and set up an airport lounge that is actually worth paying money for.

We’re going to spend Christmas with Chris’s family again. I guess this is what we will be doing every year for the foreseeable future. His family is like the family you always hear about but aren’t actually a part of – everyone genuinely gets along and looks forward to seeing each other for Christmas and Boxing Day – no drama, no gossip, no back stabbing, no holding onto stupid memories from the past. That feeling is very foreign to me because I cannot relate to it at all. The anticipation of seeing all your family in one place about it and being excited about it – it’s a total enigma. And then in some very odd way, sometimes when I think about it, I am a bit nauseated. Maybe that’s because I am envious that I can never have that feeling with my own family, even though his family is technically supposed to be my family now. But we all know it’s never really the same.

I remember telling Ed how functional Chris’s family and greater family was around Christmas, and he kind of chuckled last year because he responded, “well, that’s not anything like our family!” Ed via Bart will spend Christmas in Melbourne this year. He won’t be alone again. And he’ll be in a functional house.