Wednesday 1 December 2010

Capturing Christmas



Usually, I just roll my eyes when stores, offices and even cities jump the gun in gearing up for a given Holiday.

Either I'm getting older and time is passing more quickly or is it just starting that much earlier every year? I stroll by the Halloween costumes in August. I dodge the insipid red-heart culture of Valentines in the post-New Year blues. I boycott all pubs on St. Patrick’s Day.

But then: there’s Christmas.

Is it the treasure of warm golden foils and sparkling decorations that melts my disdain? The smiling Santas and angels of redemption so full-of-promise? Everything is reflective, plush and welcoming. You can’t help but to feel it. With two young daughters who still (kind of) believe in Santa Claus one cannot avoid being pulled into the preparations. I think back to my bare, single-life apartment as I find myself buying red – rather kitschy – advent tea-light glasses and shiny, ripe-red Macintosh apples complete with complacent Santa (yes, Santa!) stickers as our kitchentable centerpiece. Even my three-year-old daughter was so drawn, so committed to the gold spray-painted mistletoe at last weekend’s market that it too proudly takes its place in the immigrating Xmas mélange. Apparently, Christmas is not a date but a state of mind.

Even though I somehow pull it off in the end, let’s face it, I have succumbed to the ride of the reindeer. Rising to the task of spiriting our home for the upcoming season has me struggling to satisfy my minimal mindset while effectively achieving Noël-glow.

It promises to be a challenging month. But it's well worth it.

2 comments:

  1. Do you remember N&N trudging through the snow to join us around the tree at Melbourne Avenue?

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  2. i have a very vivid memory of the two of them, big smiles and all, arriving in the foyer of melbourne avenue after the long and snowy trek down sherbrooke st... cool, how they are still very much with us.

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