The "spirit" of Christmas ...

Since my eldest brother and his wife decided (a few years back) not to gather with the rest of the family over Christmas and Faye unexpectedly passed away in 2006 I strongly felt that the Christmas spirit which had us all, my mother and aunt (already in their late 80s) included, "play" throughout the night the guessing game (as to who had bought this and that present for this or that person, whilst unwrapping the unnamed presents, not being entitled to them if we failed three times) would be gone forever but  after the first years of emotional restraint, we have "regained" the pleasure of being together (irrespective of the reduced number of family members) and do actually include memories of the past involving the "absentees", as if they could just be temporarily gone.

We do sometimes change the "rules" of the game and start distributing the presents to the older members of the family and not the youngest ones and seem not to scream out so "fervently" - FAILED, as we used to, when someone gets the wrong name. We have also developed new strategies to make life difficult for others to identify those who bought the presents, by either wrapping them with different Christmas papers or buying things which we would not normally buy (in terms of personal taste) to deviate the attention to others.

 

 My brother Miguel  and my mother in the process of identification of one of the presents (Christmas 2011)

I can't recall when we started amusing ourselves this way, but one thing I am sure of - it was when both Faye and Mia were young adolescents. Every year I take hundreds of photos and there aren't too many differences in the ones taken in the last years (my nephew being the exception as he has grown a lot taller) -  it could easily be the "spirit" of Christmas ... because none of us is getting any younger ...

I can't also remember when we started including important places and monuments of our childhood as part of our Christmas city "tours", especially the lighthouse which was incorporated in the tennis club and whose "private" parties were then reserved  for well to do families (ours included).

Standing in front of a bottle recycled Christmas tree in the market Place of Figueira da Foz (fom left to right - my brother Miguel, my sister-in-law Celeste, my niece Soraia and I during the Christmas of 2010)

Near the lighthouse fortress in 2009 (left) and 2011 (right)

Not much of it remains apart fom the historic walls, so we have recently decided to simulate the parties of the past, with my brother playing the major role of dancer (he won a few dance competitions in the past).

My brother Miguel and my daughter Mia in a Tango move (left) and in a folk type of dance approach  with me (right).



May we keep this "spirit" ... for as long as we live, irrespective of who goes or stays ...