Narra: What is the date today?
Sasha: January 6, 2024, the third year anniversary of the insurrection. I’m sure the people want to know that.
Narra (laughs in surprise): What a great way to start! And it's also Three Kings Day. OK! What is your name and how old are you?
Sasha: My name is Sasha Jeleen Geisinger and I’m 19 years old.
Narra: Wow, you're old! (😂) Where are you now and what do you hear and smell around you?
Sasha: I am in Jakarta, Indonesia, at my humble abode, Jalan Cibitung II, my house in Jakarta with my family. I hear Eva and Dad talking in hushed tones, probably talking about something college application related. (Eva’s applied to UVA and JMU Early Action, and to William & Mary , Virginia Tech, and UNC Regular Decision. We are in the waiting period now awaiting decisions to be released from each school: mid-late Jan for JMU (i.e., any day now); Feb 15 for UVA; mid-March for VT; late-March for W&M; March 31 for UNC. 🤞🏼)
Narra: I actually think they're talking about the senior Bali trip - he's booking her flights today.
Sasha: That's awesome. I also hear the rumbling of traffic outside. I would've heard the dehumidifier had you not turned it off. I don't smell much of anything right now. (Sasha was still a little sick from her exam-week illness that landed her in the ER on her birthday!)
Narra: Now we're going to talk about Christmas: Why do we celebrate Christmas and what does Christmas mean to you?
Sasha: To me Christmas means a celebration of family and togetherness - I think that is by far the most important part of Christmas to me, everyone being grateful for each other and the roles that we all play in each other's lives…and getting to be physically together.
Narra: How is it different than Thanksgiving then?
Sasha: Christmas also has a religious element obviously, celebrating Christ’s birth. And I think it's also more of a major holiday in that I didn't even get to spend Thanksgiving with you guys this year because it wouldn't have made sense for me to travel. (Sasha spent Thanksgiving with her good friend Grace Blake’s family in Richmond.) But Christmas is the big one where I get to come home and see my family.
Narra: The BIG one! (laughs) What excites you about Christmas?
Sasha: Just the excitement of Christmas morning, everyone on the couch and opening our stockings together. There's always the Blinty scavenger hunt that is exciting to think about…
(Luna's collar jingles.)
Narra: Luna! Luna just came walking up.
Sasha: I also just love the atmosphere of the Christmas season in general - the tree, the baking, the cold weather - but that is not the case currently. (Both laugh.) I feel like we don't really have like a standard Christmas dinner. We have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, of course, but I feel for Christmas we always do different things. I mean, this year we had the salmon which was awesome, and we make sushi on Christmas Eve - that's always a highlight. And this year we had raw fish sashimi for the first time in it, which was great, because it's cheaper here. It was really fun, we all prepare it ourselves.
Narra: Is there anything in these big meals that you don't like to eat?
Sasha: Not really. I’m not picky. We did have ham this year which I don’t eat, but that’s fine.
Narra: How do you help at Christmas in the kitchen or otherwise?
Sasha: I am often the one who does the baking for our holidays - like this year I made sugar cookies, and I meant to make pies, but that unfortunately didn't happen. Everyone helps with Christmas though, and takes care of stuff. I wrap my own presents, for one thing, but this year I didn’t get to help decorate cause I’m in college.
Narra: Yeah, I really missed you on Thanksgiving! That morning when we were preparing the turkey I actually called out, “Sasha! What time are you going to start baking the pies?” And then Dad and I just sat there frowning. It was very sad. Anyway, what traditions do we as a family have at Christmas that you would like to continue yourself in the future?
Sasha: Definitely the scavenger hunt. I just think that is such a staple of my childhood that, if I have kids, I want to continue. I really love all of it. I just look at our stockings hanging here - because these were handmade, right? Who knows, maybe I'll end up making my own, crocheting my family's stockings. I know these are knitted, but it’s cool to think that’s something in my future perhaps.
Narra: Yeah, Sasha! You crocheted a sweater this Christmas and it is amazing! What is one of the best gifts you've gotten?
Sasha: I'm having trouble remembering…hmm…I remember the excitement I felt when I was like five years old opening up that pink camera. I don’t know if I was influenced by the time cause I was so young, but I don't know that I've ever been that excited to open something.
Narra: I remember developing photos for you through the mail, and we’d get stacks and stacks back from Snapfish and they were mostly just like these blurry pictures of Sally and Carol (Sasha and Eva’s dolls). Every now and then there’d be a photo of like Eva’s eye.
^ Examples of the types of photos Sasha took with that pink camera
Sasha (laughing): Yeah, I remember that. I think I found that thing a couple years ago and there was old footage of Eva and me on walks around Thompson Road, because it also took video, AND, you could also play games. Oh my gosh that was a good gift.
Narra: What is one of the worst gifts you’ve gotten that you were not excited about?
Sasha: I don't know! There're things that I'm indifferent about, but there's never been something that I actively disliked, you know? I mean, I don't know. Sometimes I'm given clothes I know I'm not going to wear…
Narra, proudly: But you did wear my Boygenius t-shirt (given this Christmas), and that was cool.
Sasha: Yeah, yeah. I think opening clothes that I know I'm never going to wear are the only gifts that I’m like..yeah.
Narra: What is a memorable gift that you have given someone, or that you were proud to give?
Sasha: Oh my gosh. I have short-term memory loss. Or long-term memory loss.
Narra: This is actually unrelated to Christmas, but I remember one time when you made that letter from Spider-Man for Kai's tooth when he lost a tooth. I remember you wrote a letter and said that Spider-Man helped the Tooth Fairy that year to get his tooth or something like that. You wrote it all differently and added things to make it seem like it was from Spider-Man. It was the cutest thing in the world. I just loved that you did that for Kai. (Sasha smiling.)
Sasha: This wasn't on Christmas, but I remember painting that "music" canvas for Dad. I was really looking forward to giving that to him.
Narra: Oh, yeah! We still have that around here somewhere. What gift were you surprised about this Christmas?
Sasha: I think the new water bottle you got me is so nice. I was happy about that. (Sasha had lost her Hydroflask water bottle a few weeks prior.) I was also excited about the new earphone covers genuinely, that was great. I don’t know why I thought I would just have torn covers. (Narra had asked for the earphone brand and found the new covers on local e-commerce site Tokopedia. Most things can be found on Tokopedia - if you're willing to have some misses along with the hits.)
Narra: If you had to choose between getting a physical gift or getting an experience what would you prefer?
Sasha: I would say an experience. If you were going to tell me for Christmas you can either get this nice gift, or, I don't know, go to the Philippines, or a trip to Japan with the family, I would definitely choose the trip. So many memories come out of those.
Narra: Speaking about our recent trip to the Philippines (we’d just spent 4 days in Manila and a beach in Batangas with our friends the Pedernals), just give me three very specific memories of our trip.
Sasha: The catalan. Catalan? I think I'm saying it wrong. Casale? The horse carriage thing...
Narra: Oh! Kalesa. We took a kalesa tour through Intramuros, the old historical part of Manila.
Sasha: Yes! Our tour guide was so funny. He said he needed Zach’s brother Jacob to translate cause he didn’t speak English, but then he did the whole thing in English, and was, like, really good. So that was funny.
Another memory is just being so tired in that four-story bookstore, sitting in a corner in the children's section. I was just wiped out and I needed coffee to make it home even. But I was just sitting there sleeping or playing the watermelon game (on her phone), or resting my head against the bookshelf or something, and Zach kept coming up with books that were “Time to go Potty!” or “Learn your ABCs.” Or those autobiographies about famous people, but like kid versions.
Narra: Yeah, he was reading a book about Megan Rapinoe when I walked up.
Sasha: Yeah. He was reading aloud to me and Kai.
^ Meanwhile, Nick, Eva and I were having our own fun in the book store
^ From Philippines trip over the new year with the Pedernal Family (Mei, Floyd, Jacob, Zach, and Tara)
Sasha: And then obviously, at the beach – the hermit crab excursions. There were so many, and we were picking them up, and putting them in shell boats.
Narra: I love that memory. You finding one and picking it up and exclaiming that it was yours.
Sasha: “Keepin’ it!!” Yeah. That was fun.
Narra: Anything else about Christmas, especially this Christmas in particular?
Sasha: I think this Christmas was just me being so happy to be back. I think my first visit home did not disappoint. I had a great time.
Narra: Yes, the context here is that this is your first year at UVA, and this Christmas was after your first semester away from home, and then you came home for Christmas! Dad and I definitely remember that first time coming home, and how impactful it is. And like you just said last night in the kitchen, you said that even though you knew you could do it yourself, it’s just so nice to not have to be the decision maker.
^ Arrival and tears; Kai's batik dog gift for Sasha with Eva's gift wrapping; a last Weebiku photo - for now
Sasha: Yes. Nice not to be deciding everything or be the one in charge.
Narra: Yeah, you get to be a kid again. It’s kind of like that for a long time when you visit your parents. Even decades after leaving home. When you come home and say, “Ah! I don’t need to worry about my meals!”
Sasha: Yeah. Also, I will say we've had this for many Christmases, but there's something so awesome about having a dog on Christmas morning. Giving Luna her own stocking and presents, and having her thunder after us barking as we run from clue on the treasure hunt treasure. But yeah. It was a very special Christmas.
Narra: We're so glad that you're here.
Sasha: I'm so glad to be here!
Narra: You leave for Charlottesville tomorrow morning, which is yucky and so sad, but also so, so good for you. OK. Love you!
Sasha: Love you, too. Bye-bye!
^ Packing to Twilight, Departure, Boarded for long flight, Back in Kellogg Dorm, Missing Sash :(
Excellent contribution to the Christmas book, including the photos!!!