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What's your Christmas tradition?

Christmas is a few steps away, and there is a slow excitement entering my body. This festival of all festivals is something I look out for. The birth of Christ is a symbol of God's love for us; from decorating the house to making sweets to going to midnight mass, it is something I always eagerly wait for. For me, this is one time our family really comes together to clean the house, decorate it, and, the best part, make sweets. The Christmas carols in the background, mixed with our laughter, is my favorite sound of Christmas.


Definitely, Christmas is also marked by new or old family traditions for many of us. After COVID hit us in 2020, I found my own little tradition, which I make sure to follow every Christmas. This tradition was first inspired by my grand uncle (yes, my mother's uncle, basically); when he posted us a Christmas card. As COVID deprived me and my friends of any meetups and created an uncertainty about the future I decided to post Christmas letters to my friends. My earliest memory of letters and postmen is when I was a little girl and was staying at my grandmother's place for summer holidays. It was the last day of my stay, and I still remember being curious when the postman came asking for my grandmother, only to hand her an envelope. Which I later learned was a wedding card that was sent by post. Since I was home by the next day, I asked my mother about it, which eventually led to the narration of tales of her own childhood.



 The nostalgic sparkles in my mother's eyes and tone as she narrated her childhood stories got me wishing to understand better how things might have been. My curiosity was fed without any interdiction. My mother and her siblings would wait in anticipation for Christmas cards to arrive. By mid-December, she, along with her siblings and cousins, would wait on their toes for the postman to deliver the letters. All the kids in the house would be very hopeful to receive some cards for themselves, as they competed throughout the season to see who received the most cards. These cards were posted by school and college friends. But the postman and letters were not only about Christmas cards, and bouncing eagerness was what I realized as my mother proceeded to tell me about their days drenched in nervousness as April arrived. They awaited their report cards to be brought by the postman. This would start as soon as they were promoted to the fifth standard and have to be endured until they reached the ninth. 


These childhood memories narrated to me by my mother and the Christmas card posted by my grand uncle are what really got me to start my little tradition of posting letters for Christmas as well as birthdays to my friends. I hope that I'll be able to continue this tradition and probably find even more in the future.


    

                                                              

  -Alloysha Dias




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Picture credit: Alloysha Dias 

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