Christmas / New Year always makes people a bit reflective, I
think it’s the sense of tradition it inspires. There are things you do at Christmas
that you do because you’ve done them ever since you were a child. Family traditions, that no one can remember why they started,
but they seem to have always been a part of your family DNA.
Ornaments that get
put up year in year out and are now so old that they’re treated like the finest
most delicate bits of expensive china. In our house, it’s the fairy at the top
of the tree, bought for Mum and Dad by my Grandpa when they first got married.
Granted she looks a bit like a drag queen now, but she sits at the top of our
tree every year and is ceremonially kissed for luck.
And Red Whisker, I've no idea, where he originally came from, but he was named after a character in a story my Dad made
up for Lucy and I when we were little. He used to tell the Nogglers what the
wicked Queen was up to. (I guess you had to be there)
This year was the first
Christmas we’d spent at home since my Mum died. My Mum always made Christmas
really special and despite her Christmas Eve strop, where she was anything BUT
festive, it was always really magical.
Lucy and I made a
pact never to arrive on Christmas Eve pre Mum having a G&T. Dad would send
the secret signal that the aforementioned G&T had been poured and Mum was safely sat
on the sofa with “Carols from Kings” on the TV merrily crying at the choir boys
and partaking in a chocolate Orange (Never mind Terry, at Christmas, that
Chocolate Orange had Pamela’s name all over it!)
We could then arrive, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t turn into a wailing banshee at the sight of presents and suitcases we'd arrived with, that would be bound to mess up the immaculate display of neatly placed presents under the tree.
For some reason we
always had a Chinese on Christmas Eve and this year, we’d said we wouldn’t do
that as we wanted to make things different to how they would have been when Mum
was alive. However by the time Christmas Eve arrived, we’d all been hit by the
flu and felt generally crappy and the logical thing was to stay in, in our
matching Elf PJ’s (don’t judge, I don’t care how old you are, you’re never too
old for matching comedy PJ’s!) and eat our bodyweight in Chinese food!
That pretty much set
the standard for our Christmas, we ate, we drank, we laughed, we embraced the
old traditions, we created new ones…. Christmas bedding was inspired Dad. And
we just had a really good time!
I noticed that there
were other family traditions that I subconsciously did everyday or when I was
feeling a bit down. I’ve had the really bad flu over the last few days and
knowing there’s not a lot the doctor could do for me, I resorted to the things
my Mum used to give me when I was ill when I was little. As far as I know, they
have no legally recognized healing qualities, but they hit the spot and made me
feel better, if only spiritually!
That’s when I found this quote….
It doesn’t matter why your family has created the traditions
it has, or if you can even remember the reasons why, what matters is that no
matter where you are or one of you is missing, there’ll always be a bind that
no one else will understand or laugh at unless they’re part of your family /
team / friend group and that’s why traditions are important, they make us feel
safe!
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