It may look a lot like Christmas with all the festive decorations and lights up but it doesn’t really feel like it’s Christmas, in my opinion anyway! Forget that old Christmas Carol ‘O Holy Night’ which references brightly shining stars. And ignore the fact that environmentalists have been reporting that restricted activity and travel in the ongoing efforts to contain Covid-19 have helped reduce carbon emissions and pollution. If you look up, you really can see the stars but it’s not those I’m talking about, rather the raging pandemic that has had us seeing stars for months, muttering and talking to ourselves trying to make sense of what hit us and how to survive it.

This bold virus has taken the cheer out of the festive season for many of us. Joy to the World? Not when families and friends are unable to celebrate together. While Christmas hasn’t been cancelled per se, festivities have been scaled back in many places and so it’s far from how we usually do it. A tear for anyone who’d been looking forward to their very first Christmas experience, like new converts and babies. Well, babies won’t remember any of it but you have to feel for all those parents who throw everything into planning their kids’ first Christmas and such. Maybe when all this is over, we should do Christmas again just on account of waiting all year for this special time, only to be denied the opportunity to really enjoy it. All we wanted for Christmas was the old normal.

Not happening! My Grandma couldn’t attend midnight mass, something she’s done almost her entire life, initially to avoid the crowds at her local Church on Christmas, but also because she’d be in the kitchen all day fixing lunch for her family because as you know, Christmas is as much about food as it is about the birth of Christ. She’s actually sad her extended family won’t be coming over as usual. Mum and I missed out on Carols or at least one production this time round, and that’s one of our favourite Christmas traditions, the other being decorating the tree. I don’t really fuss about the tree at my house and in fact it’s plastic! All that matters to me is that it’s green and yes, if yours is yellow, red, pink, purple or whatever, I’ll definitely judge you.

Or perhaps not because if it’s blue, black or grey to reflect the current somber mood, your colour theme may be justified after all because Christmas blues are no joke but I digress! So about my tree, I just throw on a few ornaments and lights from the previous year and I’m good.

When it comes to the tree at my mum’s house though, it’s a different story. She’s all about ‘real’ trees, messy as those are and by New Year’s, her tree is barely ‘hanging’ under the weight of all the decorations piled on it, while those of us who opt for the ‘fake’ ones just re-box ours till the next Christmas! What I like though is that we usually decorate her tree together and my mum has kept all the Christmas cards she’s received over the years from family and friends. They’re too many now to fit on one tree so we try to place as many as we can on every surface in the living room, including the floor! It ‘helps’ that we never have presents under the tree. If you bought someone something, you give it to them right away. Besides, most people prefer cash anyway and I know it’s not just my relatives! As for the cards I mentioned earlier, well, we haven’t received any this year.

Not a single one, even though mum sent out a few! Maybe they got lost in the mail! No, we totally understand that those who usually send us cards have more important things to worry about. I’d wish you all a Covid-free Christmas but that’s unlikely to happen with surges and spikes nearly everywhere. Maybe next year!