Its nearly that time of the year again and I imagine for some people it will be a very different sort of Christmas than previous years. With so many travel restrictions in place, many of us won’t be able to see our families and friends who are overseas. Thank goodness for video chatting…at least it lets us be in touch in a more personal way than just on the phone.
Christmas for a lot of people is a time of rituals, year after year we meet with family or friends at the same place, eat the same food and the day pans out to be similar to the previous year. I think there is something comforting about these rituals…a constant in our lives.
When I was young we always had Christmas at home with a silver christmas tree (which later got upgraded to a green tree which I thought was so tall!) and dinner was always a big ham, turkey, mums special pineapple mint jelly and always salads. No point having a hot christmas dinner in Australia! And of course this was finished off with the plum pudding with hidden sixpences, and bachelor and spinster buttons. I still have these mother of pearl buttons.
After my mum died christmas was never the same for me, but after moving to New Zealand with Mark and spending nearly twenty seven Christmas’s here, we now have our own rituals. And even though it is just the two of us, the Christmas tree still gets put up.
After the year we have all had, lets hope that 2021 is a much better year and we get to see our loved ones overseas.
Wishing everyone a Happy Christmas.
