Christmas?

When I was a kid, Christmas really started when we packed the car and set off from my home city of Cardiff to my maternal grandparents in Maesteg, a small town in the Welsh valleys.  We would put up decorations, and I remember two particularly. 

One was a cardboard construction of a swan made by my mother when she was in school and brought out every year.  A double outline of a swan cut out of cardboard, with individual feathers of crepe paper and painted eyes and beak.  Each year it looked a little tattier and a little more yellow, but not to me, as for me it was more of a key opening the Christmas festivities rather than a decorative object.  It was an essential element in my young Christmas. 

The other decoration I remember was something that I took from my kindergarten Christmas tree (with permission from the head teacher I might add) a plastic, hollow, Santa on his sleigh with ‘things’ inside that rattled when shaken.  That was a staple on the tree until the colour faded and it became more of a ghostly representation of Father Christmas than anything else, but ever important.

My grandparents always had a real tree, and it was set up in the ‘Television Room’ which housed the television (that we did not have, and would not have for a number of years) and was hung with glass ornaments and real candles in little clip on holders that were not often lit, but looked good and real at all times.

One Christmas I discovered the intoxicating sound that glass Christmas tree ornaments made if you dropped them onto the hard wooden floor.  Once heard, the sound had to be repeated and so, over a period of a couple of days I allowed ornament after ornament to slip from my fingers, but I was always careful to engineer the smash so that the bits were conveniently out of sight behind an armchair.

To my credit (?) I did not try to hide my destruction and when eventually, inevitably, the destruction was brought home to me, I freely admitted what I had done and told my parents and grandparents that I simply loved the sound.  I was not punished as they obviously found my delighted candour as intoxicating as I had found the sound of the smashing!

I don’t smash things now – and anyway the decorations are plastic and they bounce – but I also don’t feel Christmas in the same way that I did.  Part of that is growing up, I suppose - and not having kids of my own to recreate the delight of what was an extraordinary festival through their responses.  But some years recently, Christmas has virtually passed us by, apart from the family celebrations of course, but we didn’t put up a tree or decorate.

This year has been different.  The belen (Nativity Scene) has gone up on the window ledge on the stairs; the tree, albeit decorated to reflect our political opinions with yellow ribbon decorations to remember the political prisoners in Spain.  Our room lights are rather more elaborate, with the centre point being an elegant ‘rose tree’ in white with lights built into each bud.  In the kitchen window there is a flashing star that is bright enough to be seen in daylight from the street, as well as giving a rather startling effect at night.

One great difference between Britain and Catalonia is the number of Christmas cards that are sent.  We have a grand total of four!  But there again I have sent none, but have decided to send an electronic version and give a donation to Oxfam (my charity of choice) for each ‘card’ sent.

But it still doesn’t seem like Christmas.

Obviously the situation in Catalonia does not lend itself to festivity.  We are three days away from a crucial election, and the polls are not encouraging.  If the parties which advocate independence do not gain an absolute majority I dread to think how Catalonia will be treated by a triumphant Spanish government. 

We know that Rajoy has no intention of accepting a vote with which he does not agree.  Our only hope is that with an electoral majority, perhaps the EU might take more of an interest in the democratic process in this part of the Iberian Peninsular!

I am not holding my breath.