Es wurde geweihnachtet*

Categories: rejoice-with-me

Tags: Christmas, German

Date: 26 December 2007 00:33:52

Christmas has been achieved. There have been no disasters, either culinary, present-related or relative-related. Two festive meals have been satisfactorily cooked and eaten (this is the price of combining Austrian Christmas and British Christmas). As usual, too much has been eaten. Gifts have been exchanged and admired, and most of them aren't going back to the shop. Good times have been had with family and with friends. The times with friends were better. It was pretty hard to find God in the midst of it, but that's true of most of life. Wherever God was, I realized I was more likely to find him in the people than in the presents. This is a good realization.

Now I can relax into that liberated and liberating period between Christmas and New Year, when there is no script and no obligations, and we can all slouch around, watching lots of lowbrow TV and eating our way through large packets of Twiglets, Pringles and crisps, not to mention the nuts, dates, clementines, and of course the chocolates (of which there is a superfluity).

I really, really am going to do Christmas more simply next year. But then I say that every year...

*totally spurious German phrase meaning 'Christmassing has been done'.