A Christmas Story

Once upon a time a little girl with a big voice was born in a town in Germany in the height of summer. To get the girl to be quiet, her parents had to emigrate all the way to South Africa. There the little girl grew up in a nice house with a big garden. She had a happy, sunny childhood and especially loved Christmas time. She adored going to ballet performances at the theatre on Christmas Eve. The little girl, remembering her german heritage, and thinking that all of her birth country was covered in snow during this season, making it look like the pictures on cookie tins, took great pains to cover all the window sills with white cotton wool and sprinkle silver glitter over them, so as to create a wintry atmosphere while the outside temperature was somewhere around 30 degrees. Every year the parcel arrived from the grandparents in Germany, with the most important ingredient: the black syrup, which the girl's mother needed to bake her special gingerbread cookies. As usual, the syrup leaked out of its container and created a sticky mess with the rest of the parcel's content, which did not exactly reduce the stress level of the girl's parents....but somehow this was as much part of Christmas, as the dinner of fried baby sole with potato salad and home made apricot sorbet served inside some sparkling wine :-) The artificial tree would be decorated on the 24th. Every year two kudu horns were placed in front each adorned with 10 candles and naturally generously sprinkled with silver glitter. Sometimes, the family would go to the beach on Christmas Day and then friends would come over for dinner, for which the little girl made place cards, urged her mother to take out the special plates, and decorated the table with lots of silver glitter ;-)

With the passing of time, the little girl obviously grew up...I may still be little, and the girl bit can only  be noticed with very reduced lighting and by an extremely benevolent beholder on a very good day... As fate would have it, the "grown up" version of me now lives back in the town where I was born. The loud voice is  no longer there...it must have been left behind together with the very sunny disposition I used to have back in South Africa. Some things, however do not change. I still love Christmas even though there hardly ever is snow, and I still have the tendency to put silver glitter over things :-) I am often cold and maybe a bit lonely, the mostly grey weather makes me sad... It took quite some time for me to accept the fact that I would never have children of my own. We do have a real Christmas tree with the candles actually ON it. I still decorate the tree on the 24th. While doing that my mind tends to wander, and, being ever so slightly materialistically inclined, and inspired by the grayness outside, I tend to bemoan the fact that I have no induction stove top, I will never get the pretty diamond ring that I am dreaming about, nor that dreamy lingerie.... But then, by chance I casually look at Thomas, as he puts the top decoration on the tree, and it suddenly strikes me: of all the beautiful, wealthy, accomplished, smart women in the world, some cosmic force has decided to entrust this man to my care. This handsome, clever man, caring and patient has decided to put his entire trust in me. I may cook for him, it is my lap he lies on when he is tired, he cuddles up to me when he has bad dreams, and he comes home to me after a long day's work, trusting that I will be there for him. This is ME we are talking about here, 154 cm of not always easy to handle ex little girl, not some super model, power woman who has both feet firmly planted on the ground. And then I feel completely overwhelmed. This one person has given his life to me. And I realise that indeed I have my very own Christmas miracle on the ladder just in front of me. Of course this does not mean that I would complain bitterly of a new pair of Louboutins...

I still miss the little girl and I wish, for the sake of Thomas and for myself, that I could recapture some of the sunny nature I used to have, and yes, I get terribly homesick for Christmas in summer. But truly, I know that I have been given a wonderful gift in the shape of Thomas. And of course my little furry "daughter", the cat, who would sing loud arias of displeasure should I forget to mention her ;-)

Have yourselves a Merry Christmas:-)