Merry Christmas!

The 25th of December each year is like going back to your childhood. Waking up with Towanda purring, nervous, impatient to get out of bed with the same excitement that I felt when I was a child and the first thing that I thought of when I opened my eyes, was at last the day has come.

I don’t need an alarm clock on that special morning; it seems that the first rays of sunlight announce that it is a special day. The laughter, the echo of the voices from your neighbour’s house and the sound of the children playing with their new toys in the street, all flood in.

Each Christmas is special for me. It is a morning when I think that you can forget about your obligations of adulthood, when you are at home surrounded by the people (and pets) you love the most.

Many people have travelled thousands of kilometres just to see their mother smile for two days, to touch their grandfather’s wrinkled hand, to be thrilled to see their nephew opening a present for the first time. When your phone overflows with messages of Season’s Greetings. When someone like me sends you a card to remind you to enjoy every moment to the full. Because, let’s not kid ourselves, on the 25th of December in the morning, our childhood comes back to us.

Opening presents that other people have searched for excitedly for you and, in turn, seeing their faces while they unwrap those that you have got for them, which you have spent time, money and above all, enthusiasm on.

But it is not all about presents, because every Christmas morning is made up of moments that will become part of our album of memories:

Think about the person cooking the Christmas meal and their expression of satisfaction when they see everyone at the table. Your parents’ faces, whose wrinkles remind you each year of when they used to put together your toys that were fresh out of the boxes, when they wrapped up your first computer, your favourite book. The feeling that the family is growing. The nostalgia to think about those who are no longer here and all the Christmas times that you spent with them. The moment when you ring the doorbell of that person who has been dying to see you. The afternoons around the television watching a film with the family, dinners with friends. And so many other unique moments associated with the 25th of December that make them unforgettable and that, each year, give you that special feeling again.

This year Towanda and I have, for weeks, given many presents in different places of the world, to make you a bit happier. Presents that we have prepared fondly, because I love to think that you will never lose that excitement when you wake up on the 25th of December.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Anekke and Towanda