Hi there:
I have had a talk with one of Chris’ friend and then asked Chris herself, but I still think Christmas is something strange. Why would hundred millions or even a billion people celebrate a child’s birth from 2000 years ago? I have come to the conclusion that it’s just for non-profit businesses to ask for donations, for supermarket chains and other business owners like this to make more money, for families to get together, and for kids to get presents outside their birthday. Chris has had a nice mother on this last aspect; there is almost half a year between her birthday and Christmas.
And what do they do for Christmas? Cut twigs off trees, bend and decorate them and then put four candles on. But no way are they going to light all of them! Just be patient and wait, one after the other! And that’s what they call another strange name – advents. And finally they cut a whole tree and drag it into their living room. Again it has to be decorated with various things, and the major difference would be the choice of electric or real candles. Chris says at her mother’s they always have real ones, which smells very nice and is warm and cosy. Probably very warm when the tree burns down! But in her 26 years of living this has never happened.
Why I am writing all that? Because yesterday we went to something they call a Christmas market. That is when the usual shopping street is turned into a noisy horror trip with extra shops standing in the middle of the street, nice smelling sweets I am not allowed to eat, and other little things Chris is fond of. She seems to have discovered that candles are nice, because she bought two. However, she also bought a telephone cable. Why that belongs to Christmas I don’t know. Maybe she puts it on the tree as well? For the moment it has replaced another one connecting her phone to the wall.
The thing with telephones is a strange story, too. I remember a time Chris would sleep on the couch in the living room, waking up in the middle of the night when Shadow called her. Back then the phone would have only two locations, either the couch table or the desk. Then came a day when everything changed, and Chris carried a new phone with a new ring tone with her, upstairs, on the balcony, in her bedroom. The time of sleeping in the living room was over, and I had to stay here on my own.
You see, people will always remain strange, no matter what you are telling me. I am just waiting for Christmas itself to smell and find out what exactly is going to happen, yours, Hapoo.