Christmas Packages

My ethnicity is Taiwanese/Philippino, but my adoptive family is Dutch Indonesian. Growing up our meals were filled with all sorts of indo foods that I love and now with my mom gone, it has been difficult to recreate those dishes the way that she did.

Anyway, when I was a kid my grandma (oma) in Holland would send a package at Christmastime with all sorts of goodies that we couldn't get very easily here in the US. The box would include lots of candies (Drop and Chocolate and Rang and KING Peppermints) there would also be a fair amount of Indonesian treats that we definitely had little access to way back in the day. Those items were mostly kroepoek and emping, both chips that are deep fried and served with meals. Oma would always include speciality seasonings that we went without for most of the year until Christmas rolled around again. Every Christmas my mom would carefully store away the kroepoek and such and use them throughout the year. Those packages came every year until I was in high school...until oma passed away. We still received packages, but they didn't come as regularly as when oma was still alive.

Many years have passed since those days and I forgot what it was like getting a box shipped to our house that had those items. My aunt (my mom's sister) who lives here in Vancouver sent us a box (which was delivered today) and when we opened it I was very excited to see all the goodies! It felt like home again...she even included chocolate letters - a T and N.

I didn't realize how much I miss those days until now - what a special surprise!