Christmas in a cup

A couple of days ago, I was reading someone's blog (someone from the States, though I can't remember who) and they were saying that one of their Christmas traditions was to get a gingerbread latte during the holidays. Now I don't really care much about Starbucks, and if I were in the States I probably wouldn't think twice about it, but we do strange things to try to reconnect with our home culture and at the time I read it, I thought "Hey, I could do that, and maybe I'd feel more like it's Christmas!" Seems kinda crazy, and even now it's hard to explain but as many of you have lived overseas, you probably know how it is. So, even though it cost as much as 4 meals ($2.50) I decided to spend some of my Christmas money on a gingerbread latte. It was tasty and I was kind of enjoying it until I got outside where the sun blazing and I started feeling very hot. Then I wished I'd asked for an iced gingerbread latte. I took off the lid to try to cool it a bit and the very hot latte sloshed down on my bag and leg. So now I was trying to catch a songthaew with my drink in one hand, while trying to hold my latte soaked plastic bag at a distance with the other. Thankfully, I made eye contact and got a songthaew quickly. At last, I could enjoy drinking in peace... except that the songthaew was so bumpy that I couldn't drink from the now lidless cup without splashing myself. "Oh well," I though, "at least I can take a sip when he gets to red lights and lets other people off"...except he sped through all lights and let only one other person off before me. So all the way home (on the songthaew, running across the road, riding the motorbike taxi home) I was holding my drink at a distance lest it slosh me. When I got home, I found I didn't really care much about drinking it anymore. Maybe I shouldn't have worried about being late and stayed to drink it in the aircon of Starbucks. Or maybe I should have waited til I had more time. Or maybe I should have remembered that Christmas doesn't come in a cup.