The thing about Christmas!

In the last few days I’ve been very, very homesick. I’ve been missing my mum and my grandad the most. And I think as Christmas approaches, I miss them even more! Last night after a few failed attempts to sleep, I decided to call my mum to tell her how much I love her. Two hours later, I managed to say NOTHING!!!! I wish I could call my grandad to say I love him, but he has gone for a year and a bit now… but that’s all ok!!!

Well, I really want to use this post to say how I really feel about Christmas. And just to let you know, I’m writing this now under the influence of three pints of beer and half a bottle of wine, so I don’t know what you might read here…

Anyway, the topic is Christmas!!! I reckon that Christmas is good and bad. When I was very young, I used to LOOOOVE Christmas. Every year we used to have the party at my grandparents – our house. My mum and dad didn’t really have money to buy our own house, so I used to live with my grandparents, my uncle (mum’s brother), mum, dad and my brother. It used to be a bloody mess!!! But I always loved it!!!

My grandad was a very generous man, and I think I was his sweet heart (I don’t like to play favourites but my uncle’s favourite was my brother so I guess I can say without remorse I was my grandpa’s favourite one). Every year we used to have a fabulous HUGE Christmas party and he used to buy me heaps of cool presents. We always had a great feast, hundreds and hundreds of presents and all the relatives used to come over. Man, that used to be the highlight of my whole bloody year. My grandad was ok with money at that stage, so presents were in excess. I was very young, so I can’t deny that it was all I thought about…and after all, everyone seemed to always be having a ball as the food was great, the whole family was there and everyone got presents. That used to be the time when Christmas was bloody fantastic!!!

As the time went by, money became an issue. My grandad was having a few financial problems (as everyone always does in Brazil – a part from the corrupted politicians, which is another story). So the X-Mas parties weren’t that crowded anymore. There weren’t that many presents anymore. And being a young girl, for me that was a shock!!! All of a sudden Christmas didn’t seem to be that great anymore. And I have to say that it is too embarrassing. But that’s exactly how I felt. And I won’t ever forget the day that instead of having 40 relatives in my house for Christmas, there were only the seven of us. That was maybe one of the saddest times of my life!!! So that’s when Christmas started to suck for me…

After that year, I cried a week prior Christmas every year without stoping. I didn’t know exactly the reason for the tears. And now that I don’t care about the presents, I think that I cried not because of the lack of money to buy presents, but because I realised that the relatives that I loved so much weren’t going to spend that special night with me. I realised that Christmas wasn’t about all those presents. Christmas was about having the family together laughing together, joking about each other, having that smile in my grandad’s face because the house was full of people…

Nowadays I still feel that Christmas is kinda sad. And, even though my grandad isn’t here anymore, he still plays a HUGE part in my Christmas. But not for the present, but for the happiness he brought into my heart all the time he lived!!!!
Well, I think that’s the thing about Christmas. It’s good and bad. It’s happy and sad. It’s family and individual time. So that’s how I feel.

I miss my family sooo much, and Christmas is kinda of important to me.

Sorry about the melancholic post. But that’s the thing about Christmas…

Merry Christmas!!!!