I suppose you might expect a Polish couple like Albina and me to be full of the Christmas spirit now. After all, the Polish Christmas is traditioally a beautiful time. For a start Polish kids get early Christmas presents on St Nicholas Day on December 6th. St. Nick comes at specially organjzed events on that date with a white beard, but dressed, not as the Coca Cola advert draped in a red robe with white trimmings, but as a Bishop wearing a mitre. Well the historical St Nicholas was supposed to be the Bishop of Myra. However there is no race between Polish families to get the first Christmas tree up, as you sometimes get in England. Poles cannot understand how English families get their Christmas trees as early as the end of November. That way the magic of the Christmas tree is dissipated and almost gone by Boxing Day. On the contrary the four weeks before Christmas are supposedly a time for Advent. when we Polish Catholics are supposed to practice contemplation and even abstinence as we prepare for the coming of the Lord. The Christmas tree goes up as late as December 23rd or even 24th, and stays up until January 6th, for the Three Kings. The trees are quickly dressed up before Christmas Eve with baubles, fairy lights and whatever decorations come to mind and are surmounted with an angel at the top. For kids this is the magic of Christmas with the tree only just up the night before the feast day, and the Christmas Eve repast awaits them as soon as the youngest child in the house has spotted the first star. And that Christmas Eve meal is the most memorable, consisting at least traditionally with 12 courses, the exchange of wafers as we hug and kiss each other around the table wishing a wonderful New year with great prospects, health and happiness. A curious thing about this gargantuan session is that we would be eating no meat. The table will be laden with herring and carp and vegetables and mushrooms and beetroot soup and dried plums in compote and cabbage leaves stuffed with rice aplenty, but no meat. Then bloated and drunk with vodka shots we would make our way to a midnight mass, avoiding police patrols, and sing our hearts out with carols, jovial and sad. And next day the English Christmas dinner follows.
That is the tradition for UK Poles. However, not us. There is no Christmas tree or Christmas welcoming mat in our flat. The fact is that my wife hates Christmas. Orphaned at age 7. Albina was brought up by relatives who cared little for her, or she spent time in a children's home. Christmas was an occasion when she was largely excluded and did not enjoy the events, as she watched her cousins get presents, and when there were none for her. The distrust of this kind of false Christmas bonhomie has left its mark. Christmas is not on her calendar. When Sandro was growing up and my mother was still alive we enjoyed the traditionl Christmas ceremonies. We had the Christmas tree and the presents and the feasts. Sometimes we joined communal celebrations of Christmas Eve at Polish parishes and clubs. However, Albina would often absent herself on these occasions, and soon Sandro, had become as cynical an atheist as his mother. He sensed the hollowness of it all and baulked at Christmas celebrations himself. As for me, I would happily join in with friends for Christmas when Albina was away in Poland visiting her friends in the winter. However, if Albina were to be at home in December, then I would not normally be celebrating a proper family Christmas with her. I too gradually gave up on all the pomp. There were still some great Christmas events organized by my friend Kasia and her family, and I would occasionally enjoy attending them and play party games with them, but although Albina was always invited if she was in London, she never went. So I too felt I should be absent myself and not be a burden, or even a figure of pity, for others.
Of course I still had to write some 20 or so Christmas cards. As my writing is pretty terrible most of the messages on these cards, whether in English or Polish, are undecipherable. I have no idea what our recipients thought of them, They probably looked at them, shrugged their shoulders and thought, "well at least it's the thought that counts". Albina never wrote anyway and did not even sign the ones I wrote. So Christmas was always a tricky event for us. Our joint pet hates are the American Christmas films with their cod psychology and their predictable sugarcoated storyline, normally starting with somebody who hates Christmas (with whom we can identify) and finally his/her succumbing to something ghastly and unreal called "capturing the Christmas spirit" and punctuated, always, by snowfall, even if the action takes place in sunny Californoa.
However this year we had agreed to visit Stefan and his wife Ewa for a solemn meal on Christmas Eve. Also we promised to visit Sandro for a Christmas dinner in Cambridge, before he disappears beyond the Baltic, in the snowdrifts of Finland. At least his partner, Liisa, is a fan of a proper Finnish Christmas and Sandro feels compelled not to disappoint her.
Today, Tuesday 20th, I said my goodbyes to my colleagues at work as I won't return there until 3rd January. Normally, I would get all the office staff in Ashford warm mince pies and chocolates as going away presents before Christmas, but this year I did not bother. This was not just me being cynical about Christmas, but the girls in the office as well seemed oblivious as well. Every year they would put up Christmas decorations. This year, not a peep from any of them, no holly, no tree, no lights. Considering how bad the last two Christmases were you would have thought they would make an effort this year. Yet they were so busy they claimed they had no time. However, I believe it was still the curse of covid which still hangs over all of us. It still saps our enthusiasm and has taught people that the regular Christmas treats and celebrations are not essential when the pandemic crisis hangs over us. Of course, Christmas is still there for little children. Christmas was still celebrated commercially, town centres still shone with lighted reindeers and angels, but for the rest of us our heart was not in it. Strikes, cost of living, the war in Ukraine, executions of protesters in Iran, women humiliated by coarse Taliban thugs at the gates of higher learning institutes, royal family at war....What was there to celebrate?
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