F is for Family
If anyone ever actually figured out, or at least pointed out to her, just how sentimental she actually was, Santana would have been mortified.
It's not like she would be the only one. Kurt seemed to hang onto every memory of his mother with something close to worship, and his annual holiday traditions with his father seemed to be carved in stone, with nothing getting in the way of carrying them out. Rachel was even worse; she seemed to have a certain and very explicitly detailed way of doing every little thing for both Hannukah and Christmas, from the exact layout of decorations to the precise recitation of certain prayers or rituals, and her fathers seemed to have been very big on making sure that she continued them on with or without their presence. Rachel in particular seemed determined that others do her rituals her way and at least grin and bear it, if not enjoy it, but clearly she got something out of doing so. Outwardly Santana scoffed and mocked their practices, but secretly, she held back, wistful for her own.
She missed the Christmases when she was a little girl and even a teenager, where she had been allowed by her mother to decorate the entire tree with very little supervision, even if it did mean that her mother would have to go back behind her and redistribute ornaments so they weren't all on the bottom on one side. She missed being taken to pick out a Christmas dress by her abuela even if she did get barked at through most of the trip, and she missed taking Christmas pictures that her abuela would hiss through out of the camera's frame, threatening slaps or pinches if she didn't smile. She missed being told about Santa Claus by her mother and dark elves who would spank her and leave her coal by her abuela, and she even missed going to church Christmas morning before she would be allowed to go home and open her gifts. She missed the feeling that for at least one day of the year, she could expect that both her parents and her abuela too would all be there with her, paying attention to her and reasonably pleasant with each other, and she really missed knowing that now, this would likely never happen again.
She would go home for Christmas, of course, but this year it would be different, for all of them. This year Kurt would go home with his house clearly altered and empty, without Finn being part of his new family rituals. Rachel too would feel his absence, and Santana would, for the second year in a row, come home to what would probably only be her and her mother. No abuela, and likely not her father either, as last year he had chosen to work on Christmas rather than have to choose sides between spending Christmas with his mother or with his daughter and his wife.
It would be a sadder Christmas, a more sober Christmas, than any of them were accustomed to, and though none of them spoke of this aloud, it was clear as it grew closer to the time they would all leave for Lima that none of them really wanted to go, until the night before they were scheduled to head off.
Even then, it was nothing they spoke about. It was just that when Santana found Kurt slumped on the couch, his head in his hands, she sat beside him quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder, until she felt his arm circle her shoulders and pulling her against his side. When Rachel knelt in front of them a few moments later, wrapping her arms around them both and resting her head in Santana's lap, it was decided without them needing to say it that at the very least, they would all drive down in the same vehicle.
Their families would never be the same, but they had formed their own among themselves; it couldn't replace what they had had, but it could, perhaps, make new grounds for nostalgia.