[It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like... ?]*

 

We're 22 days away from Christmas, have you noticed? 22, that's all you have left of running around looking for gifts (more from Non Plastic Christmas Gift Guide here), Christmas drinks, dinner and gatherings with friends and colleagues and all the excess of these days.

But what is Christmas (or these Holidays, I want to be inclusive since it is not Christmas for everyone... but more on that later) for you? Is it the same it's always been? Has the concept changed for you? Is it more enjoyable now or less than it was?

In spite of having a catholic upbringing (catholic nuns school and all), Christmas was never religious at mine. It might be because I am Spanish and in our culture, any celebration pretty much revolves around food and family. Someone's birth thousands of years ago it's secondary. My memories of Christmas are tons of yummy special / expensive food that you wouldn't have on a normal day, that food transforming into several courses of big long family meals and tons of presents.
I have really good childhood memories of going under the tree with my brother to see what presents we got, watching those movies that are on every Christmas, all the food being prepared in the kitchen with my aunts, my mum and my grandmother working as a team. I am mostly in charge of laying out all the desserts and special sweets you have around at this time of the year, just so you know.
Then I moved out of my parent's and out of the country, so Christmas now is that time of the year when you will for sure find me at home,the food is still very special and time with the family has taken over the importance of the gifts you get.
Until I moved to the UK I had never really been aware that Christmas is only for christian people (my bad, I do apologise, but I come from a very catholic tiny town with barely any representation of other religions). So, this thing about calling it the Holidays so that it applies to all religions and it's more inclusive... am I bothered by that? (Are you bothered by that?) I was at first to be honest, until I realised that what Christmas means to me is not tied to that particular word, or to the religious story behind it (not anymore at least).

It's only now that I found myself thinking: Would I care if Christmas was cancelled this year? Would it make a difference, would I miss it? The cynical part of me wanted to say "I can do without it", but actually, in all honesty, I do care. It's created a number of traditions in my family that are now engraved in me, rituals we repeat every year that give me a sort of comfort that I can't quite describe, like a reassurance that the world is still turning.

Not everything is nice about this time of the year though, there's also the crazy spending going around, buying more and more stuff no one needs, how some people tend to feel really miserable if they find themselves alone or far away from family at this time of the year... and we can all take a little step to help tackle this, stop buying compulsively, volunteer in your area with people in need, think about each member of your family all year around, give them a call every now and then, not just at Christmas.
There's something about this time of the year that makes us all want to be better, better to others and hopefully also better to ourselve (or is it just me on this?)

How do you feel about Christmas? What does it mean for you? Has it changed meaning over the years or is it the same?

 

 

 

 

You can get a Daniel Wellington watch like the one I'm wearing on these photos with 15% off using my code NAIVE2 on their website.

(Photos by Iona Nicolae)