Thoughts From a Christmas Philosophy

So for those of you who know me this goes without saying, but for those of you who are still getting the hang me here is something you need to know: I LOVE HOLIDAYS!

And by that I do not mean the kind of holidays where one lies on a beach sunning ones self for days, I mean holidays like holiday seasons- Birthdays, Easter, Halloween, Christmas; you name it I love it. Holidays, like animals (especially those I can touch), have the ability to turn me from a relatively mature, responsible and functioning 24 year old into a high-pitched, giggling, child-like mess. Never is this truer than during the Christmas season- and yes, to all you Grinches out there, although I admit lights should not appear in August, Christmas is not just a one day event. It is a festivity that can be realistically stretched out for at least 3 weeks before people are allowed to start complaining. As far as I am concerned if you have an advent calendar it’s Christmas!

Christmas spirit in the form of nail art 

 Sure, I started early with the help and encouragement of my parents and Christmas was done in my house with a serious nod to tradition and a dedication of time and effort. Nothing proves this more than my memories of my earliest advent calendars, no shop bought chocolate dispensers for me- my mother would painstakingly collect 24 small gifts for me throughout the year (mostly my favourite sweets or hair bobbles and cheap lip gloss but occasionally the promise of some fun activity or trip), wrap each one and hang them from the ceiling. My nativity had at least a hundred figures, including livestock, a lake, real dirt, a cave made from rocks, mood lighting, an elongated narrative and a fence to stop the cat peeing in it. My Christmas tree was ALWAYS real- no exceptions, even though the cat attacked it and the pine needles fell everywhere and the decorations didn’t match because they were all beloved and ancient and in some cases a little odd. And putting the wonky star on top was my job every year. Our tables and mangers (yes people we have real mangers in our house!) were decorated with homemade centrepieces made from pinecones, twigs and ribbon all lovingly collected, sprayed gold and assembled by my dedicated mother. Our Christmas cake was homemade (apart from that year the rats ate the creation that took months to prepare and days to decorate with edible poinsettias), our home smelled like cinnamon and Christmas music blared out constantly for a month.

Following all this careful preparation Christmas eve would follow a strict schedule of Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation, putting cookies and milk out for Santa and a carrot for Rudolf, me reading ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and the door being left open because I was distressed by our lack of a chimney. I always got a Christmas stocking full of tangerines and nuts, chocolate and trinkets which I would open on my parents bed before breakfast and Santa always brought me treats wrapped in shiny paper which appeared under the tree just before lunch.

Now I am aware that all this reminiscing is only serving to make me sound spoiled and precious and probably making people a little ill at the saccharin sweetness of it all and let me assure you I am well aware of, and often a little burdened by, the privilege and opportunities my childhood afforded me but let us not get caught up on that- it is not my point.

My point is that these experiences have made Christmas for me a time of magic and a time when I am allowed to indulge the child in me and take pleasure in repeating the traditions which bring back such fond memories of a sometimes not so peaceful childhood. This is why I feel it is my duty and obligation to foist my excitement and holiday joy on everyone around me at this time. And this approach has stuck through it all- Christmases adjusting to separated parents, Christmas in Cambodia with no family, or snow, or tradition to be seen, Christmases at my sick grandfathers bedside, Christmases alone in Berlin with dad and a dear friend (whose philosophy quite matched my own) and Christmases with my boyfriend’s family who took me in with open arms and introduced me to the traditions of a much larger family with equally matched enthusiasm. 

My friends at university might roll their eyes and moan a little when I force them to play Christmas quiz games with me or help me to make hundreds of mince pies, and my parents might secretly think I am too old to insist on a real tree if I am present and my friends overseas might think I am crazy to spend so much money on imported holiday tat and insist on “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” on repeat even though its 40 degrees outside. However, I maintain that when we are all sitting round a lovingly decorated and usually squinty tree (or one year cactus), drinking mulled wine and looking at a pile of humble, yet carefully chosen gifts after a meal eaten in friendship they come around a little. And even if its not in their habit to be so, well, Christmassy I would like to think that at the very least it makes us all feel a little more lucky and a little less alone.

One Christmas at uni

Even Tom got his Christmas spirit on!

All that being said I was not going to let the fact that I was planning on spending this Christmas alone in a hotel room in Antananarivo change my headspace. So when I was standing in my bedroom in London staring at my empty suitcase and Brian asked me to choose five things that were absolutely essential and non-negotiable I chose these: one three foot plastic Christmas tree from the charity shop that saw me through university, a pack of three Christmas DVDs, one Santa hat, my packet of Christmas presents from home and a small bag of assorted decorations including a homemade star. He laughed I will admit, but he never questioned whether I was serious and he never tried to talk me out of it- this was because he knew how much it meant to me to be prepared to be cheery despite being alone in a hotel. This is why, when I arrived at Akany Avoko to volunteer while our paperwork is being done in the capital my tiny backpack was only half filled with useful things like clothes and toiletries- the rest of the space being given over to Christmas fare.

Me and my Brian one Christmas

Sure, Christmas will be different here: I am not with my family, I haven’t seen my boyfriend in months and it is so hot you could fry an egg on the pavement (if there was one). But different does not have to mean bad, or sad for that matter, and it is sheer force of will and more than a little hard work which forces you to roll up your sleeves and make Christmas Christmas. Those of you who have always spent Christmas at home or in someone else house will not understand what I mean because you will always just have woken up one morning to find the decorations out, the food cooked, the presents wrapped, the weather changing. Also in countries that have embraced the commercial aspects of Christmas you are dragged kicking and screaming into the holiday spirit with shops blaring Cliff Richards, streets decorated with lights and Christmas movies on every channel. But for those of you who have ever hung a wreath up on a mud hut door, had to explain to colleagues what snow is, said Merry Christmas over a bowl of rice or hung your star up on the top of a cactus you will know that Christmas is not only optional, but an effort. An effort, in my opinion, that reaps great rewards.

Christmas in Cambodia

This Christmas my little plastic tree that I bought from Oxfam for £3 is now adorning the volunteer house at Akany, and my forcing everyone to participate in Secret Santa means that no one will have nothing to open on Christmas morning. My spending a stupid amount of money on imported crackers means that I will get the obligatory photo of everyone eating together in paper hats and my endless supply of Christmas music and movies might mean that my colleagues… no… my friends and I might not be quite so homesick or quite so lonely this Christmas. Sure I might annoy people a little with my endless organising and compulsory inclusion and it might take some cajoling to get everyone to join in, but when I look at the people around me and they are happily telling their families on Skype about all the things we are doing to make their first Christmas away from home special I hope that everyone will understand.

Our Malagasy Christmas area

This time of year, with its false values, impossible ideals for family harmony and expectations of joy no day could ever hope to live up to can be, and often is, the hardest, loneliest, most depressing day of the year for some. It can highlight the worst things about your life- isolation and loneliness, poverty, homesickness or self-doubt. But only if you let it. I choose, this year like all the others, to indulge the child in me and let Christmas be about making the most of what you have got wherever you are and steamrolling those around you into doing the same. Christmas cheer doesn’t just happen; it is a state of mind, a marathon of psychological preparation. But if you get it just right you wake up on the morning of the 25^th feeling like the luckiest person alive- even if you are curled up on a living room chair alone, drinking a glass of wine and eating a frozen ready meal while watching another episode of the Vicar of Dibley. 

Christmas at the opera

 So please, for me, have a Merry Christmas. I promise to document my days leading up to Christmas, as well as the big event itself and I will give you all the juicy details on Boxing Day.

I love you all and will be thinking of you so far away this Christmas, but know that I fully intend to enjoy mine so don’t feel sorry for me AT ALL! In fact, a little birdie told me that of all my wonderful Christmases this could be the best one yet!

PS. Here is a list of things I have done so far to force us all into the Christmas spirit:

1. Graciously accepted a chocolate advent calendar from a friend as well as mounting my yearly Berlin picture version
2. Put up and decorated my humble Christmas tree
3. Worn my Santa hat incessantly
4. Organised Secret Santa
5. Made mulled wine
6. Showed a Christmas movie a night
7. Played Christmas music on my laptop (sometimes drowned out by the boys’ German rap)
8. Attended a Christmas party at a colleagues house
9. Helped the children make their own Christmas decorations and put them up all over the dining hall
10. Helped wrapping the children’s 147 Christmas presents
11. Watched a female, skinny, Malagasy Santa give out said presents
12. Watched the kids light up as they opened the presents even though they were second hand donations
13. Sat through a 3 hour Christmas show by the kids in the oppressive heat (too cute by the way even if I was about to pass out)
14.  Decorated our house
15. Orchestrated a make-shift Christmas dinner early in the week before volunteers started disappearing for holidays
16. Organised an adult treasure hunt to find a bottle of rum (met with by surprising enthusiasm by all actually)
17. Bought home-smoked bacon from a friend and a bottle of cheap prosecco for those of us here on Christmas morning
18. Made an intricate plan for the next few days, which you will hear about later.
19. Wrote this post which leaves me feeling determinedly cheery

Merry Christmas from all the kids here!

And from all the Akany volunteers!