Here in Sweden, we celebrate Christmas on the 24th. Being the child of “broken home”, I’ve always spent my Christmases going from party to party, in order to celebrate with all my families.
This year, though, my family is spread out all over the world. I have a mom in Liberia, an aunt in South Africa, a cousin in Kenya, a bunch of relatives in Finland, another cousin due to celebrate with his girlfriend’s family up north and another aunt sick after having just come home from a trip to Cap Verde, and all my grandparents are now dead. Accordingly, my Christmas celebrations this year became both different and much more low-key than usual.
I ate brunch with dad, step-mom and brother. Rice porridge, of course, and I got the almond. Then home, to finish up the last cooking, after which I jumped on the bus to auntie Sinikka’s house.
The streets were so calm and dark. Weird in a way. The bus driver was a sikh.
At Sinikka’s, we had a lovely Christmas dinner, me, auntie, cousin Elmer and second cousin Jani, with everything that it entails for a Finnish-Swedish family: two different potato, one turnip and one carrot gratin, salted salmon, ham (that I didn’t eat), pickled herring, Karelian pasties with egg butter, beetroot salad, mustard sauce, bread and strong cheese, glögg, julmust and schnapps. For desert: my last minute ginger bread mousse, Finnish Christmas pastries and homemade candy. It was nice. Calm. So unlike most other Christmases that I’ve had.
I left pretty early, to make it to the good bus, and ended up watching Awkward., a corny MTV produced (I remember the days when they only showed music videos…), American high school TV show and eating some more, in the lonely apartment. It was a nice Christmas Eve.
And it just hit me: Possibly the first ever Christmas that I haven’t spent with my mother. Or wait, there was that one Christmas in South Africa that I spent with dad and his part of the family. Oh, well, I guess this Christmas wasn’t a first after all…
Katja Malmborg 