[Theme Week] Söderberg: Far from Home

[sköldpaddor]

The holidays have always been a pretty special time in the Söderberg household ever since Helena was young. With their father having died when most of them were still fairly young, holidays were always a time to draw the rest of the family close together, to remember everything they have and everything they've lost. These days, though, the Söderbergs all seem to be scattering farther apart as time goes by - Helena and her twin, Cecilia, have both left home this year to go and play professional sports; their younger sister Astrid is off to medical school, mostly leaving only their youngest brother at home with their mother and stepfather to put up the decorations.

So, with the family spread so far apart and most of them unable to make it home to Sweden this year, they have begun to modernize things a little. The time difference between Tokyo and Luleå is a steep one, eight hours, but there are still enough waking hours shared in there to spend a few hours on Christmas day talking to one another. They don't even do anything all that exciting; they talk, open a few gifts, laugh about their favorite parts of last year and talk a little about what they're hoping for in the coming year, but Christmas has always been about family for them more than anything else, and that hasn't changed.

The other nice thing is that due to the time difference, Helena is able to celebrate for a while with her family, and then go to any team functions the team is having, too. Being so far from home was never going to be easy, but having a team of people around her who all seem to enjoy each other's company and who are eager to help each other out has definitely made it a lot easier than she was afraid it would be at first. She's not sure what the rules are around giving all of your coworkers holiday gifts, but she makes sure to bring a very large bag of popcorn for each of her teammates after their last game before the holiday.

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