“It is about the spirit”, they say.
Yeah, there is something about it, doesn’t it? After a while as a grown up, I’ve come to find it interesting the amount of ‘pressure’ that is released during the countdown as well as how much it changes people’s feelings and perceptions of what’s going on out there. It is almost as if everything was renewed, our sins forgiven and a new chance just received by post granting us the opportunity to do it all over again, but better. Oh… Christmas time!
I remember when we were younger and we would be already at the farm for days, surrounded by smiles, food and good jokes. We would gather, almost all forty of us, celebrating the fact that we were together for this special holiday. Although we lived so close and saw each other almost every week, being together on Christmas had a special taste, a different meaning. Propagandas, commercials and people repeat the same thing all over again: “It is a family time” and so we followed, we gathered our best ones.
When I was born, she already used to spend the holidays at the farm. It was her favourite season and in the best place in the world. She thought of it -as well as we still do today- as a sort of sanctuary, where only good things and memories are allowed to happen. The farm is the place where there is always a spot to someone else to eat and sleep. Nothing is spared. There’s love and hugs and music and party. No anger or sadness would enter the front door and nothing that could possibly harm anyone. The spirits that live in farm are just like the ones that consume the Christmas time, but all year long. Her Decembers were filled with this goodness and these are certainly the best memories we share.
I guess that by now I know enough to tell how hard it is this time of the year for her. Almost nobody around us understands it, but Christmas is the only time of the year which makes us question whether our decisions were right and if distance is the real solution for things. So much hurt lives underneath the equator, but also so much love and joy. All in equal proportions, under the same roof. I feel her heart getting slow beats the more it approaches the Eve, which they all celebrate. Her thoughts are constantly going back and forth to memories and wonders of what would they be doing this year, who would be there and what were they going to eat tonight. The more she thinks, the more it hurts, but neither can she stop doing.
We live in a place where people don’t give much importance to the Eve, so it’s more up to us to try and make it special. We’ve managed to re-create something similar a couple of seasons ago, and bring a bit of the special taste of this moment to the ones we share our days with, but it led to nothing but heartbreak. Perhaps I was misunderstood or the other way around, but fact is that almost no joy was shared and nothing was truly acknowledged as merry as it should have been. My feelings and homesickness, constantly forsaken by the bystanders were shouted at and as I drove off, I stopped to cry alone in the forest. I was alone, far away, and I had no one to bring those good feelings back to me or, at least, to accept what I had brought along with me and really wanted to share. This happened two seasons ago and this strange refusal still haunt the day.
But now we are gathering again for another Christmas. We’ve got another chance, so we’re using it. I’ve checked the phone and it says that everyone will be together again at the farm, playing Secret Santa, talking and joking all day, taking long walks at the forest or down to the waterfall. Sounds magical as I write and I can really feel it as I remember. I can barely hold up my tears for missing it so much, but that’s what us expats do -we hold on. I guess that now, as decisions and changes come to place, I can truly say that perhaps as long as I carry these memories and its feelings inside me, it won’t ever matter where or how I spend these days. This goodness will live forever and their truth is shared in the hugs I get to give and the good things I get to wish to others.
So to get in the spirit, Merry Christmas! I wish you laughs, good food, jokes, warmth and, above all and all, make good memories to carry within.
