Theme: OH CHRIST

So this is Christmas …

And I am in Amsterdam and I really should be with my daughter.

She’s back in the UK and it’s such a mess there. She is in this stupid lockdown in an empty house.

We used to do Christmas, I mean we really DID Christmas. For a whole month, liberally borrowing from my German heritage as well as indulging in the British.

It was totally my thing. I CANNOT BELIEVE I did all that.

I would start with a home made advent calendar. And Adventskranz on the kitchen table. And decorations up the bannister and throughout the house. I had group of wooden nutcrackers and angels from the Erzgebirge and a herd of little fauns. On the 6th was Nikolaus with a little present and chocolate for L’s shoe. And we would take Prudis and drive out to the Kent country side to a farm and get our tree. And missletoe. And firewood. And for branches for more decorating. And we would spend the rest of the day setting up and decorating our tree with an array of unusual decorations collected over the years. Our tree would be in the bay window. Together with large lit up paper stars. I would make biscuits and truffles for Christmas presents. We’d have red cabbage with cloves and cinnamon. I’d be cooking and listening to my favourite Christmas music while having sips of port and little cry now and then.

It was Christmas.

There’d be one day I’d book Somerset house and we’d head up to London ice skating. It was so beautiful. We’d skate around noon and then walk the streets of lit up city street: Covent Garden over to Liberty’s and buy a special new bauble there. Liberty’s is always pretty special. Rococo chocolates and silk scarves. And we would head over to Soho and Old Compton Street for cake lunch at the original Patisserie Valerie. Eggs Benedict and Earl Grey and Millefeuille and beautiful Raspberry tarts. A couple of doors down we would pick up a lux magazine and walk over to Carnaby Street to look at their always rather insane street decoration and a quick peek down Regents Street to pop into Oxford Circus and Topshop and walk over Oxford street and down Bond Street, my favourite!

With its peacock street lights.

It was Christmas.

Back home L and I would watch movies like Trading Places and Elf and The Holiday. Projected on the chimney breast of our living room above a roaring fire. Each year there was a ton of firewood sitting in a white bag in our front garden.

It was Christmas.

And there’d be evenings of presents wrapping with special themes and custom made name tags.

And card writing.

And music and smells and chocolates.

Back in August I’d go out into the fire hills and pick skies and damsons over at Phil and Jude’s for sloe gin and damson, blackberry and sloe jam.

This would come in very handy by December.

For Christmas Eve L and I would drive up again to London with The little car full of food and presents and a couple of clothes. We’d make a point to stop by the Smokery and pick up smoked salmon and duck breast and whatever we fancied. We’d drive to Clapham to spend Christmas with Eila, L’s Finnish nan. And we’d help her decorate the flat and in the eve we’d be invited over for starters by lovely family friends Raj and Alistair before heading out to a posh dinner somewhere in Fulham or Chelsea. The lights in London are simply the best. Elisabeth Street and Albert Bridge. And Kings Rd. And Sloane Square.

It was Christmas.

And I cannot believe it was me celebrating it.

I cannot believe it’s not like this anymore.

I cannot believe I am not spending it with L this year.

I cannot believe she is struggling paying her rent and buying food when I am supporting my tenant who hasn’t paid his rent since last March.

I cannot believe I am living in a room when I should be living in an apartment so I could have her with me and we’d spend Christmas together and I will hug her and we’d watch our favourite movies and have a laugh and make everything beautiful and then head over for dinner at Jones’.

You cannot do this stuff over Zoom.

I need to get my shit together! For her also. She needs my stability now.

My support. We are faced with extraordinary challenges at the moment.

And I should be there for her.

2020 It feels like the Third World War.

But it is conducted in the most elegant way. We’re not sending youths out to get slaughtered. But it is war. Maybe that’s the reason why so many elderly are leaving, the feeling of another war to live through is simply too much.

This is War. Against a potentially lethal, but invisible enemy with symptoms we all are familiar with.

Family.

Enemy-Family.

Who is family?

Who is the enemy?

Currently it feels like my tenant is my enemy because he owns me £4K in rent. It’s fucking his problem but he is making it mine. I’ve been trying to be empathic to his struggle and patient and friend-like but now I start feeling entry, like he is becoming my enemy because he prevents me from supporting my own daughter who is struggling in the same way as he does. Or even more.

When does a friend become an enemy?

When does an enemy become a friend?

I don’t like having enemies. It feels horrible. I try to avoid it at all costs. I keep the peace with everyone and I can say that I’ve only ever encountered a handful of people I ended up not speaking to anymore. And that was through their choice, not mine.

At least at the time it was.

But once someone explodes in my face and decides not to be my friend anymore, that’s it for them … for me.

Their choice is a choice for life.

I never go back on that.

That’s my prerogative.

… it’s the way that I wanna live …

Better believe it.

But do I believe?

I feel I am getting grumpy.

And it’s Christmas, ffs!

What’s that all about?

I hate feeling like this.

But Jones calmed me down.

He made me laugh by joking and we listened to Sleigh Ride really loud and we danced crazy in the room.

I needed that.

He knew.

That’s why I am in love.

I love my life as it is. I love the situation I am in, because it includes him. And my daughter. Whichever proximity, I still love and appreciate. And live.

What I don’t love is that it seems I cannot be there for my daughter because I love my life as it is.

That cannot be right.

Maybe I am. There for her.

In a way which I cannot see.

But It looks like the opposite.

It seems obvious.

How can I see past the seemingly obvious?

By taking off the magnifying specs.

With them I see things near magnified. As really big! I see my life and I see Jones.

What if I looked through a spyglass? My daughter would not look far away, but close. Within my grasp.

The Amber Spyglass.

If I changed the glasses I look through, my perception changes.

And then power is to know that I can choose the specs I want to look through and that is the only believe I need.

All is relative.

Christmas is HERE and not 5 years ago in London.

My daughter is HERE with me, and not in a mutant virus infected sad Brexit country.

Everything is here.

Because I am.

Looking.

It’s so strange when I look at my previous life and don’t recognise myself. At all.

I can almost believe that it wasn’t me. That’s what nostalgia does to you. It makes you sad.

Piss off, nostalgia.

Nostalgia is the reason there are people who do not like Christmas. They cannot remember the happiness they felt at some point. It must’ve been someone else, someone they are not anymore. Back then they felt joy for Christmas. That was that person. Now they hate Christmas and this is who they are now. Basta.

I almost went there this morning.

But I realised that any life I have lived is not gone but still there.

If I choose to live it.

I don’t want to be a grumpy person who is miserable at Christmas. I was happy then and I choose to be happy now.

Merry Christmas, Grincheeeesss

PS. Apologies for any typos, I didn’t have time to edit. Am too busy enjoying Christmas