It doesn't feel like December when it's 95 degrees.

My Thanksgiving two Saturdays ago ended the way all my previous 21 Thanksgivings have ended: sprawled on the ground, vowing to never eat again, but sitting up as soon as someone mentioned dessert.

I spent my Thanksgiving in Save with nine other volunteers. With two gas burners, a charcoal grill, the help of two host country national experts in slaughtering ducks, and a lot of sweat, we managed to pull off a relatively decent feast. Observing American tradition, we started the next day by blasting Christmas songs.

And so began my first holiday season of my service, and my first holiday season that I will not be at the house in which I grew up. It will be the first year that I don’t see the Plaza Lights. It will be the first season that I don’t see snow. It will be the first December that I don’t spend two days baking with my sister. It will be the first Christmas that I don’t sit with my back against our brick fireplace opening presents in age-order with my family.

It will be the first holiday season that I decorate my house with paper snowflakes that my students made. It will be the first year that I will likely eat my Christmas dinner with my hands. It will be the first December that I visit the beach. It will be the first Christmas that I will receive things such as peanut butter, African ignames and oranges as gifts.

I used to wonder, on those holidays where my family stayed at our house instead of traveling to see relatives, when you stop going to holidays with the family in which you grew up and started having holidays with the family that you created. When do you leave some of the traditions you’ve practiced your whole life and start making your own?

Whether I like it or not, it’s happening now. And while I don’t want to think about it (and my parents won’t like to hear this either) these next two years will probably not be the last time that I wake up Christmas morning under my Christmas blanket in the room in which I have, until now, woken up every Christmas. While some things may be coming to an end, this is the beginning of others.

I don’t know how hard this next month will be, but I’m pretty sure I won’t forget it.