I wrote “Is it really Christmas?” more than 6 years ago.
That post sums up my negative feelings about the holiday period well, so read up if you’re itching for some Xmas-bashing clichés. But it doesn’t correctly represent the way I feel about it now, or maybe ever. It’s bad, sure, but there’s some good left in it. Christmas is Darth Vader.
This time of years is a great opportunity to make and bake stuff. This time around I thought I should try making melomakarona for the first time. I followed a vegan recipe that substitutes honey with grape syrup plus another batch without syrup. I must say the results were quite satisfactory.
Then of course you have Christmas or solstice parties and family gatherings. It can get annoying explaining for a millionth time to extended family your plans, or worse, the lack thereof, but hey, free food, good food, praise for my melomakarona.
Food as gifts is a great idea actually. It doesn’t have to be expensive, you can take the time to personalize it, prepare an experience as well as a real physical thing, and it can work for both people that like having stuff around as well as not.
I just realised that I have hardly received any presents this year. I was thinking that I truly, really wouldn’t mind if I received nothing at all. Less of said stuff to worry about.
No, I’m not being honest here: If I had to say, I’d like it if somebody got me a new jacket or some smaller jeans, or a shiny new, yet unassuming, journal/notebook/sketchbook to take with me to the army as a tool for rerouting my vital energy. They say that serving in the Greek army can get very boring, but I say “how can anything get boring, when you have something to write or draw on at hand?” In fact, I expect the lack of distractions and the army environment to give me some interesting ideas and the time to carry them through.
I was also thinking of getting myself a new (used) large sensor compact digital camera, as I’ve finally missed taking pictures. But then I figured that spending so much on something which I wouldn’t get to enjoy almost at all because I’ll be in the army, is indulging on some fetish compulsive spending for no good reason, which ironically is the very definition of the festive spirit… Instead, I got a couple of rolls of colour film for my OM2n and got ready for action. Results soon to come.
A couple of final notes about Christmas:
A lot of people are noticing that the weather is acting freaky, with temperatures much closer to those we’d have at Easter rather than Christmas, and perfect sunny days to boot (and it’s not just in Europe). All this plastic snowy decorations and allusions to the cold north, home to Santa Claus, which just isn’t so cold any more, make Christmas feel even more like a simulacrum: a veneer of stuff, rituals and cultural behaviours over something that has been so far-removed from the physical world it has ended up symbolising nothing at all apart from its own mere existence. Just like Halloween.
And, talking about Christmas decorations:
Santa’s Real Workshop: The Town in China That Makes the World’s Christmas Decorations
Made melomakarona twice this year for the first time. Both times kinda failed. First they were too dry/tasteless and then they were mushy and crumbly but with the right taste/aroma. One clap for the effort. Food as gifts is the best idea, actually. I still remember a food gift I received more than 4 years ago!
And TIL: “veneer”! It looks so Dutch.