Holidays are usually a great time. People are in a cheery mood, the smell of festivity is in the air and everyone is motivated as they have something to look forward to. Unfortunately, I can’t quite say the same for cattle, waiting to be slaughtered and feasted upon.

But whenever I think of holidays I can’t stop myself from thinking about family and home. The stereotypical way of spending holidays is at home with the family. As easy as it seems, I think it’s quite appropriate to ask the following questions  “where is home?” and “who is family?”

For some, these questions may sound very easy and the answers would come easily. For others, it’s a whole existencial question that they have been pondering upon for years now. No matter the answer, it’s fascinating to know that they are most likely to differ among people who come from the same culture, or different ones for that matter. Family is such an important concept because it is the basis of society. I find it interesting that every law in the world defines what family means, as well as where familial relations begin and end. In some places family means the mother, father, children, in other words the nuclear family. Very simplistic and small. Where I come from family refers to a group slightly larger than that, it comprises of parents, their parents, their siblings, cousins, some so distant that I don’t quite think we’re still legally related. Neighbors, coworkers and the list goes on. In fact the list is an ever increasing, open ended one, that is regularly updated.  Not matter how you define and perceived to be part of  family, I like the idea that holidays bring us all together. In Ethiopia, younger members of the family visit senior ones. It’s a day of traveling around, eating until you belly button disappears, sharing with less fortunate ones and catching up with people you haven’t seen in a while.

While pondering upon the question of  “where is home”, here again there are probably as many views as there are people in this world. Whenever I think of home, I think of place where things feel familiar, where I can just rest my head and leave my worries behind, a place where I feel safe. Come to think of it, there is more than one place where i feel this unexplainable feeling of comfort. So I can’t help but wonder, do we just have one home? Or many? Is home the city in which you were born? Is it where you grew up? Is it where your family lives? Or is home wherever you are? Last but definitely not least, is home in each and every one of these places or more?

When you think of how small and accessable the world has become thanks to easy, affordable and frequent flights or other means of transportation, anyone can live in any part of the world at any point in time. With all the migration and adoption that goes on in the world, finding or defining home could turn out to be a task slightly more difficult than one can imagine. Some say that home is where the heart is, I am not sure how accurate that is but I’ve come to learn that the heart can be in many places at once.

Regardless of what your answers are, and whether you celebrate this holiday or other ones, may you have as many homes and as much family as you wish. Happy holidays!