By Times Literary Supplement | Created at 2024-12-24 09:03:01 | Updated at 2024-12-25 12:58:56
1 day ago
To everyone.
This is just a “Christmas Hello”. I am back in the UK for the holiday, doing Christmas in a bit of a rush, but more or less as usual.
I have done the cake and I have done the pudding. (Shhh, don’t tell, but I came back from Washington for a week at the end of November partly to make them.) I am now in the UK for a little longer, enjoying the season. But how?
The truth is that it is a wonderful destabilizing mess, from decorations to food (turkey on the day, plus a Nigerian evening on Monday). The only utterly unnecessary extravagance is our TWO Christmas trees, one on each of the main floors of the house. They are decorated with our proudly mixed family in mind. The first is dolled up as if we were in the midst of a Victorian Christmas (plain glass baubles, mock candles and so on). The other, in the basement is a gloriously multicultural confection, with decorations from “anywhere but here”. I mean the Venus de Milo rubbing shoulders with a mini-Colosseum and Rosa Parks in the company of some Roman legionaries and the logo of Princeton University. And, while we are at it, we are also celebrating Hannukah.
I hope your Christmas is as messed-up, and as meaningful, as mine.
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