A Bronx Holiday (Two, Actually)*

So we’ve hit some milestones since moving to New York City:

• Bethany and I have had opportunities to give people directions. That’s a great feeling. “Hey! I know more than nothing!” 
• Riding the subway and knowing where to change trains without having to look at the map
• Recognizing – and being recognized by – people on the street
• I don’t need street signs to tell where I am on the Bx12 bus – I can just take a quick glimpse at the passing storefronts and locate my position.

Those little “wins” mean a lot when there are still so many things that seem foreign and unattainable. We still feel a little lost even walking around our neighborhood, not because we don’t know where we’re going, but because it seems sometimes that we’re the only ones here who don’t speak Spanish. (We’re working on that, albeit slowly) Or when I get pulled over and ticketed for making a left turn at an intersection where I’ve been turning left for three months now and never once saw the little no-left-turn signs. Oops. [Now I’m paranoid: What else have I been doing wrong that I didn’t realize??]

Princess Anna, Silvermist,
and a skunk

In any case, we have reached two more milestones: we have seen both a Bronx Halloween and a Bronx Thanksgiving. Are our experiences authentic Bronx, the way that most people here experience them? Maybe, maybe not. But we did learn some things.

Halloween

In the city, at least where we are, kids don’t go trick-or-treating by knocking on the doors of houses. Instead, they go where the stores are: restaurants, hair salons, shoe stores, convenience stores, Laundromats, and even liquor stores all hand out candy to the throng of kids who live in the area. They also go pretty much right after school is out, so from 3:30-6pm or so. We had purchased a bag of candy in case someone came knocking at our apartment door, but it proved unnecessary (we had to eat all that candy ourselves, unfortunately). We followed the crowds of Elsa’s, Iron Men, zombies, and Super Mario brothers to the shops on 198^th, and the couple of individual homes here and there where the residents had a supply of candy for the kids. Our girls each got a bucket of candy, and we met a couple of our neighbors – easily the best result from the evening, neighbors we can now greet and have some kind of history with. We also learned what we want to do next year: After our girls get their trick-or-treating out of the way, we’ll come back to the stoop of our building and hand out our own candy. Hey, gotta go where the people are, right?

Thanksgiving

Three generations of Gliddens

We decided not to return to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, opting instead to turn the Christmas vacation into a whirlwind family-visiting marathon. Part of the reason was that the break from school wasn’t very long – New York City has no “deer days,” so school started back up again on Monday. My parents were also able to come up from Pittsburgh, which was a blessing, and Amber, Priority 1’s Children’s Ministries Coordinator, spent the day with us as well. Coordinating food is always a challenge, and one issue for us was figuring out what to do with the frozen turkey, since keeping it in our tiny freezer was nigh impossible. Amber had enough space at the P1 apartment, so she kept it for us, and that worked out. We** also had to coordinate crock pots and coffee pots and toaster ovens and microwaves, because we can’t use too many at once, lest we overload our outlets. 

It all got done, we had a great meal, we watched some football, and we even saw some snow fall. It just happened a little differently than we were used to.

And no, we did not go to the parade. Our warm, comfy beds were much too comfy and warm to abandon at 4am or something to go stand on the street for 8 hours. Perhaps in the future, when we’re all a little tougher.

We look forward to more milestones, big and small. Let’s just pray I don’t get any more traffic tickets.

*Here I am using the term “holiday” in the sense of “any significant day.” We could debate for a while as to whether or not Halloween qualifies as a “holy day,” but I’ll save that for a later time.

**And when I say “we,” I mean, of course, Bethany.