By Alex Evans
For the past few years, I have spent December 6th engrossed in the frightfully mundane. So determined to look ahead, ignoring the twang of my heartstrings as I desperately tried not to think about the celebrations back home. After all, I got what I had wanted for so long; I came back, I was home. But now I spend my time forming brioche dough into the shape of little men, something I haven’t done since my lycée days. I find myself torn between sharing them only with the dear friend who followed me here, a small piece of the culture we grew up in shared like a secret between us, and making enough for everyone. Bringing that same joy to the people around me, but steeling myself for the familiar dullness that has been with me for the last 12 years of my life. The small thud as you realise that no matter how well you explain, nobody else quite gets it like you do.
The small thud as you realise that no matter how well you explain, nobody else quite gets it like you do
Christmas was always accompanied by 8-hour drives through Belgium and France, squashed in by clothes packed in bin bags to save space for the presents we all pretended not to see. The scent of dark plastic hung heavy and nauseous in the air, pierced only by soft snores and the gentle drone of the radio. When we finally emerged from the car, victorious and exhausted, on the other side of the channel, that was when Christmas could really begin. Now, finally, I was surrounded by the warm coloured lights of my Grandparents’ living room and the grey skies I knew. Throughout the rainy weeks we’d pile into the local cinema, gorging ourselves on every film we’d saved, every seasonal blockbuster we wanted to savour instead of letting them crackle through the dying speakers of the old TV. Every year we’d miss most releases, unable to bear the translated subtitles at the bottom of the screen.
I rejected Luxembourg’s stories and traditions, baffled by the celebrations on the 6th, and dismissing the markets as cold, crowded, and too small. The English kind of Christmas was all I cared about, and I knew that as long as I didn’t succumb to these unknown festivities, I could never betray the place I came from, the person I knew myself to be.
My very first December in this new country, I was taught the words to a children’s song. A song you sing on the 6th to call St. Nicholas to you, who would bring presents and puzzles and Boxemännchen. It took a few years to realise that somewhere, somewhen, I had started to understand them too. I didn’t need the same explanations of each rhyme and each joke, and slowly the walls between me and this festive world started to fade away. No longer mumbling and tripping over my words, I stood tall on my desk with everyone else, singing and laughing as the room around me descended into the joyous chaos I had come to expect with the same tightening anticipation each year. For a few brilliant minutes, the graduating class would run into the classroom throwing sweets and sticks, demanding that we sing for the Kleeschen (St. Nick himself, or at least their tallest 19-year-old in a long white beard). It was in this giggly, glittery daze that my heart first settled into this new version of me. Newly unafraid of strangeness and compromise, rewarded with a growing sense of belonging. While it did come with an uneasy sort of estrangement from the culture I had so staunchly clung to, there was no replacement or betrayal. Instead, there was a unique kind of homecoming, and a brand-new middle ground.
My heart is wrapped in traditions both old and new that I choose to carry with me
Now I spend December nights dreaming of the snow settling in my hilltop village, high enough that it comes down every morning, but not so high that it ever sticks around. I still dream of London’s hanging lights, and the warmth of a family hearth, except now I long for the symphonic laughter of Luxembourg’s markets, the boot-shaped mugs filled with warm hot chocolate, and the brisk cold with bright blue skies. Christmas isn’t confined to the 25th anymore, or to turkey dinners and colourful paper hats. Now, the magic weaves itself throughout the month, leaving nostalgic twinkles on every December 6th. My heart is wrapped in traditions both old and new that I choose to carry with me, and I honour myself as I honour them.
Most of all, I find Christmas in the halls of an old, celluloid cinema. Posters dangle from the walls, still advertising the first releases of Dr. Strangelove and Citizen Kane. We keep our coats on, bundled up in the ancient building, and I sit with my Dad as the projector whirrs to life. We’re here for the special screening of It’s a Wonderful Life. Version originale, sous-titres français.
Image credit: Evelyn Verdin via Unsplash
