What colour is your Christmas?

Article in English 🇬🇧

Christmas is in the air. I mean, it has been pretty much since Halloween. I remember walking into a home decoration shop only to step into dozens of square metres of Christmas sparkles and lights. I walked out with 2 tree ornaments - it was only the end of October which felt ridiculous but slightly exciting too. Shortly after, the first conversation about Christmas was brought up by my mum. And that was it, just like that the wheels were in motion. I went from a care factor of close to zero to childish enthusiasm. Christmas tends to be the easiest-going family event of the year, the nicest in every way and a lot of care tends to go into it - especially from my mum. It’s not over the top, unreasonable and dumb, it’s just nice, beautiful and thoughtful. I can’t help but think that right now we can all do with a bit of the latter. 

I surprise myself by how much I am enjoying the early preparations. Also it helps that Christmas in Portugal is glorious and hilarious. Lights on the streets and massive “Boas Festas” have already been up for a few weeks and Portuguese friends are already posting photos of their decorated trees (some have more than one in their home) on socials and we are still more than a month away from the big day. I wonder if my neighbours are going to stick in their window, their now legendary naked Baby Jesus who seems to look very much like an overfed cherub. Each year at this period it’s a laugh every time we walk past their home. 

Up until last year, the only Christmas tree I have ever had or made had been in my parent’s house. So this year will be the second year that my husband and I have a Christmas tree and I am looking forward to it. When I was a kid, my mum used to phone up her own mum, my grandmother, whose house was literally at the end of the garden, to tell her to come down for the Christmas tree session. She’d ask my sister and I what colour we wanted to do this year? She had boxes of decorations and ornaments gathered over the years and it was all organised and packed by colours. So we got to pick the colour theme and then my mum was on her way to fetch the relevant boxes from the garage. While the chaos unfolded, Mémé (my grandmother) was presiding from the sofa, usually sipping coffee and eating chocolates whilst the rest of us seemed to be spending more time untangling the fucking lights (always a nightmare) than hanging any globes of the branches. I didn’t have the reference at the time but amongst the fun and the shared joy, there were moments that now remind me of a post Ikea trip trying to put all the stuff together. In other words, a domestic crisis was always in the offing.

Do I feel all grown up to do my own tree now? Gosh no. I instantly revert back to childhood. I wish I could still have my grandmother around. I would sit her comfortably on my reclining sofa, in front of the fireplace, Anthony would make her a La Pavoni coffee and me some madeleines. I am pretty sure, she’d be amazed by the sofa more so than the food and beverage and she would crack jokes. I am nowhere near the stage of asking my husband: what colour do you want for the tree? I guess he is horrified and indulgent enough every time I buy new stuff for Christmas as it is. Anyhow, since no one asked, it’s going to be “gold” - again - and we’ll have a real tree, not a fake plastic thing that lives in the garage and gets dusted off once a year for the show. 

Thanks to my supremely organised self, (falsely inherited from my mum who, outside of Christmas, is the embodiment of “I put it somewhere but I can’t remember where”), everything for Christmas is currently tucked away in labelled plastic boxes. In each one, the fragile Christmas baubles are wrapped in small protective fabric pouches from my years of buying Aesop hand soap. Which in summary means: I have only started to collect Christmas items since last year and yet I have no idea what exactly I own (thanks mum - that’s you too) and unpacking it all to make the tree is probably the most Christmassy aspect of the whole thing. Meanwhile, like any Christmas nerd, since last month, I have kept buying decorations here and there as long as they were gold-ish. 

Last but not least, I just love giving gifts to loved ones. The whole journey gives me a rush, thinking about what they love and enjoy, finding ideas, deciding on one, getting or making the gift, wrapping it, decorating it, adding a card to it, personalising it in the hope that it’d be a hit for them too, that they like it and feel appreciated. In this aspect, Christmas always delivers. My mum’s living room becomes a gift wrapping workshop. I always bring my own goodies for the occasion in the form of ribbons, stickers, labels and so forth. We spend hours prepping everything and since there aren’t any kids for whom we need to stage “Santa is here”, we leave the beautiful packages at the feet of the tree for a few days to admire before the opening night.

In my family, even though we’d never openly speak about it this way, Christmas turns into a series of rituals that bring us together. Irrespective of what the year brought. It’s like a temporary truce, a space between spaces where we get to love each other no matter what, to be together, to commune, to celebrate and to also remember the ones who used to be here and whom we miss. It is literally the family high-light of the year.  

I wish us all, high-light, high-love and if you’re into a Gold Christmas like me, I wish us a lot of fun prepping everything too. 

Thank you for reading.
Mahé