New York City (JFK) to Copenhagen (CPH)
Dec 28, 2024
It’s been a quiet holiday season for me, especially compared to the chaos of last year. I flew in to New York City from Lisbon1 and arrived late on a Wednesday.2 I stayed with my father, just like last year, and spent much of the time either meeting up with friends or hanging out with family. I cooked a little bit,3 worked some jigsaw puzzles,4 and played some board games.5
I ate and drank a bit more than I was hoping over the holidays. It’s been a year of mostly frugal, mostly healthy meals, and I guess I took the liberty of relaxing my guard. I even baked some desserts6 and went to the Gramercy Tavern for their fancy tasting menu.7
It was a peaceful interlude between the stress of the past year and the stress of the upcoming one. I’m currently on a transatlantic flight to London, where I’m going to land at Heathrow then have to make my way to Gatwick for an afternoon flight to Copenhagen. I’m spending the New Year in Denmark then returning for more medical misadventures in Portugal. It’s an open question whether I’ll sleep at all on this flight; I suspect I’ll just be dealing with jetlag for the next week.
One of the things I’ve been missing out on while traveling has been spending time with my niece and nephew. Charlie is eight years old, and does not seem notably different than at seven; still obsessed with video games8 and still not particularly interested in what I’m doing unless I’m playing one. I’m not bothered by that. I don’t necessarily expect people my own age to be interested in me, so I can’t imagine it would be much different for children.
Nora, however, has totally changed. Two years ago Nora was too shy to talk to me, peeking out from behind my sister-in-law’s legs and staying safely on the other side of the apartment. A year ago Nora was comfortable enough around me to ignore me completely. This year Nora has decided I am now worth keeping an eye on.
I should explain that Nora is a five-year-old with the soul of an Empress, so has very strict ideas about how things ought to be and will ostentatiously point out any deviations from that state of affairs. Nora will stomp over to me, clamber up less than an inch from my face, and declare that I am no longer “Uncle Chris” but “Uncle Stinky Poo Poo Pants.” The effect is somewhat ruined since as often as not Nora dissolves into giggles at that point but it’s impressive while it lasts. Nora has also mastered crossing one’s arms with an imperious “harumph” and in response to requests is already tossing off “whatever” with the disdain and condescension of a 13-year-old.9
It’s hard not to be somewhat charmed by all this, even as Nora pokes you and then delightedly shrieks as you poke back. I suspect Nora likes me as well, although it’s somewhat challenging to tell. I was asked before I left why I had to leave, which is probably a good sign, and I was forgiven rather quickly for accidentally spilling water in Nora’s eye.10
It would be nice to see Nora and Charlie at least a little more frequently, even if I’m no longer in New York and able to drop by nearly every day. It’s definately a drawback to traveling the way I have been. But I’m mindful of the fact they aren’t my kids and part of the reason they’re so wonderful to spend time with is because they aren’t my children and I can spend as much time away from them as I want.11
Traveling has really driven home the point that I’m never going to get to be around the people I care about as often as I’d like. I’m able to uproot myself and drop in on friends more-or-less at will, but that still means I’m constantly having to turn down invitations because I’m visiting someone else. I’m reminding myself I didn’t grow up loving my extended family any less just because I only saw them on holidays.
It’s still sad to be leaving, even if I have good reasons for doing so. At least I’m looking forward to coming back next year, and finding out how my niece and nephew have grown. By then Nora may well be God-Emperor.
Footnotes
1 I had a long layover at Gatwick, because I had booked a roundtrip flight from London before I knew where I was spending November or January. I had to catch an early morning flight to London to ensure I had time to make the transfer, then sit around waiting for hours because I did. Ironically I ended up doing the same thing in reverse while flying to Copenhagen, except this time my next flight leaves out of Gatwick.
2 In an inexcusable fit of optimism I had booked a Timeleft spot to meet random strangers in New York for dinner but somehow missed it started at 7pm, not 8pm. I landed with 15 minutes to make the hour-long trip from the airport to downtown Brooklyn. I was exhausted from the flight and the jetlag anyway, so it wasn’t the worst thing in the world that I had to cancel.
3 Okay, I cooked a lot. My sister-in-law was grateful that I was willing to make dinner, although my brother was less enthused that I tended to leave a mess behind me when I did. I did find a fantastic vegan recipe for cold sesame noodles which I suspect will be entering my standard rotation.
4 Jigsaw puzzles seem to be a recurring theme of my holiday trips these days. I suppose they’re good for distractions for both children and adults. Plus you can pick them up and set them down in whatever spare blocks of time you have, whether that’s three minutes or three hours. And with two hyperactive kids running around, you often don’t know in advance which it’s going to be.
I got my brother a Mystical Maze jigsaw puzzle from The Magic Puzzle Company for Christmas, and we solved it just before I left. I can highly recommend it. The pieces were high quality, the picture was delightful and fun, and there was a clever twist (the box promises a “magic trick” at the end) which was actually clever.
5 I had been introduced to Sky Team in the past year, and I paid it forward by introducing it to my brother.
6 My in-laws needed cookies for a school cookie exchange so I made chocolate-raspberry cookies, and I later decided I wanted to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and they turned out pretty incredibly well. And one of my favorite vegan chefs in the city — Adam Sobel XXX of The Cinnamon Snail fame — posted their recipe for vegan cinnamon snails and I felt compelled to try it, especially since my in-laws own a stand mixer and that’s a rare luxury for me.
7 The Gramercy Tavern was my favorite restaurant when I first moved to New York City, and while I haven’t been back in a while I suggested it to a friend who had never been before and so ended up there the night before I left.
The last time I was there there was a separate vegetable tasting menu and it spanned seven courses; this time there was only a single menu of five courses but each course consisted of two options, and only one of the courses lacked a vegetarian alternative, which they were more than happy to swap out for something I could eat. I was pleased to find the restaurant was as welcoming as I remembered.
8 Minecraft is a nearly all-consuming obsession, at the moment
9 This is particularly amusing since it drives my brother absolutely crazy. Nora may, in fact, be a sociopath. The jury is still out.
10 Although that hasn’t stopped it from being brought up multiple times by Nora as one of the strikes which will land me, eventually, in “wizard jail.” No one is entirely sure what wizard jail entails, although we’ve figured out it’s a jail run by wizards not a jail for wizards, and apparently very, very bad.
11 They are both at an age where shrieking at high volumes is in and of itself a source of great amusement and provides hours of entertainment. Did I mention both my brother and my sister-in-law work from home a great deal of the time?