'Tis the Season to be Jolly

One of the things we have in common with the Europeans I have known so far is how we associate Christmas with family. Generally I start counting down months, weeks and days to Christmas after my birthday in June but this time the only thing that makes me look forward to the day is the hope of seeing a white Christmas.

I was never the kind who missed home or people but this season in this strange new world is surely bringing out the sentimental side of me. I used to think that in Europe I would see what Christmas really is since it frames the context of almost all Christmas-y things I read and songs I heard when I was small but my experience of Christmas in Europe has so far been absurd.

Europe (subsequently America) is responsible for most of the images we have about Christmas but in this place Christmas is everything but Christmas because the Europeans have rejected Christianity (or so they think). Therefore Jesus Christ is totally missing in action! So to most Europeans it is a holiday to be spent with family. This realisation made me question what Christmas means to me. Or to people I know. So I asked around and there was something they said which is similar to what makes this season special universally. Christmas to us truly is family time too. The difference lies in the fact that there is Jesus in most of the things we do around this time. Like how we observe Advent (yes, Malayalees do that too) and give up things we like till Christmas day (in anticipation of Baby Jesus’ arrival as the mothers put it), the going around in groups singing carols in the off-est of tones to collect money for the Crib, games and other activities in Church. But from what I see and what I have heard from people it also has mostly to do with being with family.

Growing up, this season to me meant going to my grandparents’ place for the main days of Christmas, plotting with all the cousins (21 on my mother’s side) on what to do after midnight mass, how all the aunts start pushing us to get dressed for mass at 9 pm when mass begins at 11 pm, how despite starting to get ready at 9 pm we end up reaching church 15 minutes late when the Church is only a 5 minute walk away, how all the aunts who reached half an hour early for Mass realize that we came late so that we would not have place to sit in the Church and can sit outside either talking or dreaming of going home after mass and  have meat, alcohol sweets and all those things we had given up for Advent. Not to forget the fireworks that lights the skies of Kerala on Christmas night.

This is going to be the first Christmas I will be away from everything that I associate with it. Maybe what I am going to miss the most is the typical Malayalee Christmas breakfast which consists of Paalappam and chicken/mutton stew or maybe being in the kitchen while all the aunts are busy preparing these things among many others for the big lunch which follows that is undoubtedly the biggest meal we have in the year.

I can’t help missing home, family and friends for Christmas but like I go to Prague every time I miss Bombay, this Christmas I will be spending time with a family in a village (my substitute for my grandparents’ village) and see how they do it with an invisible Jesus figure.

This probably is going to be the last post on my blog this year. Ever since I got remotely interested in numerology and came up with my own theories regarding the specialness of the number 9 and all numbers that added up to it I suspected that my 27^th year would be special and well, this year did indeed turn out to be magical and eye-opening for me. Through the course of this year I learnt how important it is to keep friends close, be in a group, to accept that you do deserve all the love they give you, to begin to let go of painful memories of an awful relationship, to accept that there will be plenty of bridges to be crossed, to see beauty in the moments spent with someone while crossing one of those, to cultivate love instead of waiting to fall in it, appreciate kindness and work towards being happy.

Hope the new year brings everyone joyful surprises and here’s also hoping that the promised bizarre things happen to that one person who has always read my posts and who loves Christmas and Christmas carols as much as I do.

Merry Christmas you guys!