Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[ Music ]
>> Who are these people?
I remember thinking this as a kid sitting around this huge table,
where nearly half the people were strangers.
I mean, Christmas was about family,
so why are these people here at dinner?
Where did they come from?
Does this mean I get more presents?
To understand how this happened,
you have to get to know my Babushka.
I'm a second generation Russian.
All four of my grandparents came to America on an overcrowded ship
after they were forced to leave their home in China
after escaping Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution.
My family settled into the Richmond district in San Francisco,
into the heart of the Russian community,
where my Babushka was ever present.
She welcomed strangers into her home
because community was everything.
It was family.
And when you walked into her home,
you knew it because it was always full of life, and this was love.
Christmastime embodies my Babushka's spirit.
It means Welcome Home and it doesn't matter if you are related
by blood, because you belong regardless.
She opened her heart and her home, and exposed her family
to a diverse group of people; across racial and religious lines,
and even across *** orientation lines.
This otherwise traditional Russian orthodox woman was sharing her home
with all walks of life who didn't have a place to do.
All of them laughing, sharing their stories over food,
drink and Perry Como's White Christmas.
My Baba is gone, my family is shrinking, and I won't ever sit
around that huge table again.
The energy, the voices and the connectedness are what I hold
most sacred.
I carry her welcoming spirit in my own family with my daughter
and the people I work with.
So long as I make a space for someone new at the table,
a piece of her will live on.
[ Music ]