I'm a bit of a Christmas person, I admit it. I love decorations and cold nights spent indoors by a fire with Christmas lights twinkling outside or inside on the tree. I like Christmas movies, songs and listening to 'The Nutcracker' in its entirety repeatedly throughout the season. I like the little white lights on all the trees that line the streets downtown and even the ones around the malls. I hate traffic, but I love Christmas sales. Oh yeah, and I like snow.
I struggled last year here in Ireland to decide if in fact it feels "Christmasy" here. First I thought, it's just not what I'm used to. The decorations are different. There are no little trees lining the streets to be strung with little white lights. Christmas carols are piped in on a constant drone in shops, but there's no threat of anyone Christmas caroling (I know there's little threat of it back in the states anymore, but I used to go caroling with friends when I was in school!). And there's no threat of any snow. In fact, there's little else going on in the weather than rain. And let's face it, is there anything worse than seeing rain beating down on Christmas lights?
I guess everyone has rather defined notions of what makes it feel like Christmas, largely based on the traditions and settings we grew up in. In Limerick, there's a great effort made in decorating the streets in the city centre. Santa and his reindeer, snow flakes, tree ornaments, etc. made out in lights are strung from one building to the next spanning the main streets of town. A large Christmas tree is set up (although it's lost most of its ornaments to some bored teenagers that thought it more fun to vandalize it). But something about it falls short for me.
Maybe it's seeing snowflake decorations when I know there's no chance of it snowing (LMB, I know this is normal to you, but it will never be normal to me - bring on the thundersnow!!). Maybe it's that there's no defined season for Christmas. In America, Thanksgiving gives us a safe boundary for the 'most wonderful time of the year' that can only last about 5 weeks. I realize that Target and Hallmark push this, but really nobody's shoving Christmas down anyone's throat until that Friday after T'giving. Here, there's no such boundary. The poor kids hardly had time to get their Halloween costumes on before people started stressing out about Christmas. One sugar high to the next in no time flat.
I've made up my mind that I'm going to get in to Christmas this year. See, it's my first time ever away from my family. I know that it'll be different. For one, instead of singing at as many Christmas Eve church services as I can book into, I'll probably be catching up with Tristan's family and friends that have traveled home for the holidays inside a pub. Huh. But T and I are going to go look for a real tree this weekend to put up. I've been accumulating decorations that I see and like over the last month or so and I actually have a Christmas party to go to for work this year. Plus, we have 2 nieces and 2 nephews under the age of 7 that'll make Christmas day as exciting and fun as I think we all remember it can be!
In fact, I'll post some pics of them from Halloween here for you to see and you'll know why we have something to look forward to on the 25th....
