Merry Urban Holidays!

San Francisco, like many big cities, is full of transients. The kind with homes and the kind without. Like homeless flocking to warm weather, young people come to the city for good jobs,  good culture and good friends. People get on a bus to go to New York. People get on a bus, stop off in San Francisco, and decide to stay.

And though this means lots of people fly home to their families for the holidays, there are also lots that stay -- people with families too distant, geographically or emotionally -- urban orphans with nowhere to go.

Every Thanksgiving, all us leftovers go over to Sarah's parents house in the burbs for "Orphan Thanksgiving". Everyone brings a side dish and Sarah's mom makes turkey and ham. Sarah's parents are awesome; they're kinda ex-hippies that coddle you with food and regale you with stories.

For Christmas, we're on our own, so we usually end up at a bar. They're usually a decent amount of people drinking, and everyone gets totally tossed. Me, I start wearing my reindeer ears around December 10th and don't take them off until January.