Christmas at the Beach

It didn’t feel much like Christmas.

It wasn’t just the fact that it was over a hundred degrees, or that there was copious amounts of sand instead of snow. It wasn’t even because he was wearing his swimming trunks, a line of green zinc on his nose, and nothing else.

It was mostly because he was at the beach with a bunch of strangers, literally thousands of miles from home. And for the first time in his year-long, to date, trek around the world, Adam missed his family and, most of all, his friends.

It wasn’t even that Christmas was the be-all and end-all holiday, but it was the one with the most traditions.

Usually there was Christmas tree decorating complete with carols and hot chocolate spiked with something alcoholic. The something depended on whose place they were at. There were always a series of parties leading up to the twenty-fourth, from work ones to family ones to friends ones.

Present buying and wrapping were always his least favorite part because he sucked at both, but this year there hadn’t been any of that, either, and, perversely, he’d missed it.

No huge turkey dinner with Mom co-opting everyone’s help and burning the brussels sprouts (on purpose, Adam always believed, because she hated them, but Dad always insisted it just wasn’t Christmas dinner without them.)

Turkey, gravy, eggnog, rolls, two or three different salads, and that wasn’t including the Jell-O mold with shredded cabbage in it. Adam didn’t know if that counted as a vegetable or just something weird, but it always had pride of place on the table next to the still in the shape of the cans -- two of them unless they had an especially large crowd at the table and then it was three -- cranberry sauce. The Jell-O mold and cranberry sauce wiggled about the same, too.

Then there was watching his baby sister unwrap all her gifts, squealing with excitement...

A Frisbee thwacked Adam in the chest, bringing him out of his melancholic memories. A well-built guy in an itty bitty black Speedo swooped in to grab it from the sand in front of him. “Sorry, ‘bout that, mate.”

“No worries,” he replied, automatically using one of his favorite Australianism. He was glad it had happened, actually, because that guy definitely deserved a second look. Maybe a third. Possibly even a fourth.

He received a last glance and a smile from the guy, before the hottie and his Frisbee continued on down the beach.

Okay, get over yourself, he lectured. You’re on Bondi Beach in Australia, surrounded by scantily clad people, a lot of whom were good-looking guys, for Pete’s sake. It was time to stop being mope-y and maudlin and get back to enjoying where he was for what it was. And what it was consisted of beach and heat and ocean waves, loads of scantily clad people, beer and other alcoholic beverages and everyone having a whale of a good time.

He could get into that. He so could. So he would. Or else.