Christmas 2023 are over. On my way home today I’ve seen several “three kings” going around so I think I can be relieved from “happiness” for a couple of months.
I don’t like Christmas. Of course I loved them as a child, but even then the most important part was spending the time with my family in the mountains, in the chalet that belonged to my father’s workplace. We used to go to Giant Mountains in the morning of 25th December, spending the time there by skiing, making our own ski slope. These were the pre-lifts times, you know, so we needed to step up the hill to be able to ski down the hill. And it was fun. I always wished for more snow on the New Year, so we would be snowed in for few more days. It never happened. To these days I don’t know how our mum managed to clean the flat on the 24th, I only know, that it was tidy when we returned.
About 60 years on I don’t like Christmas that much. It is – in my humble opinion – a family holiday, I mean for the families with kids. Just my family – I mean my kids and grand-kids – are across Europe after we used the opportunity to work abroad and travel after the fall of Berlin Wall.
Living in a former cow-house I can only hope that they’ll eventually agree to celebrate Christmas … and everyone’s birthdays … in the summertime, where the probability of sunshine in the centre of Europe is higher than in the wintertime. Thus we could be inspired by Tim Minchin’s White Wine in The Sun, waiting for other family members to come for a chat, dance, billiard, table tennis or some desk games … just spending the precious time together which feels more important at “the closing side” of the life.
Today I decided to close my married life by walking around the castle Červená Lhota where it started. Some fairy tales were filmed there as well, the castle is usually completely surrounded by water, but it looks nice even without it. There were some holes in the dam so it is waiting for the repairs.