Every year, as Christmas decorations appear I begin to feel nostalgic about other Christmases, of long ago. If I think about it, it seems I’ve had this feeling during most of my life, as after coming from Mozambique we missed our warm and merry Christmases out there. Only when the boys were small did I recover some of the magic of Christmas and I loved seeing the wonder in their eyes as they looked at the lights, as they expectantly …
Tag: Christmas
Thirty two years ago “Last Christmas” by Wham was playing on every radio and the video clip often passed on TV. We loved to watch it – it was colourful and happy, but with a nostalgic feeling of a lost love. All the ingredients for success! And the scenery was magnificent. You may remember the story: as the song begins, we can see a house on a snowy environment and a group of young people arriving – one of them is …
She is going up the subway stairs with her mother. They have been downtown for some Christmas shopping and they are carrying many bags. Outside, the evening is cold, but the smell of roasting nuts – so typical of Lisbon at this time of the year – feels like a warm welcome. In the distance she hears the sounds of the latest Christmas hit “Last Christmas” by Wham. She sings along and her mother cheerfully joins in. They walk home …
When I was a child, I was fascinated by Charles Dickens’ A Christmas carol. At first, still very young, I was terrified of Scrooge and the ghosts, then I was interested and later, much later, in my turn reading it to my children, it made me ponder on the reasons why Christmas stirs such strong emotions in most of us; I cannot think of one person who is indifferent to Christmas – they either love this season, or hate it. …
