As the bizarre pop star character explains in Love Actually, the way they force the extra syllable to the refrain is just as sickening as the whole Christmas thing forced upon you. To tell the truth, I'm not an Advent-type, or rather my family is not the type. No garlands, no fairy lights, no fake snow spray. This year we haven't even fished out the wreath from the cupboard of Christmas decorations and miscellaneous bric-a-brac. To tell the truth the living room and the dining-anteroom are a mess. I don't know why we can't live like model families where the Mom runs a blog on good housekeeping and comes up with funny crafts for each holiday. No, surely that would be too sappy, let's just ask for a little bit of tidiness. Yeah, you might be wondering why I don't do anything about it, but I handle it with a confident "It's not my job."
Anyway, what I wanted to write about is that despite my antisocial anti-Christmas sentiment I come across manifestations of the Christmas spirit from time to time. Yesterday, for example, we had the usual Christmas party at the language school and I quite enjoyed it. I've only been once before (last year), so I don't have much experience with it, but I can tell you the way they do it is what you feel every company should do it. You enter a hall smelling ginger and cinnamon because of the hot mulled wine served by Mary (that really is her name), and the place is gently lit by fairy lights, and there's a special table for Christmas presents. Just like back at school with all those excited children. Everyone has to (or should?) bring a present (the maximum worth of HUF 1000), which you place under the tree. In the first hour or so we are just waiting for more people to come, and you can have a sandwich or a drink, and of course chat to colleagues. Not that I'm good at it, but I manage to get to know one person per year and stick to them throughout the evening.
This year I've met Sam from England who's been working here for about a month and is about my age, and of course he's a native so it was splendid to talk to him. At first I was nervous and had to search for words but gradually I started to relax. It's a pity I had to leave early because we had the usual orchestra session in the evening. Besides chatting and stuffing myself all I had time for is listening to the management discussing our financial situation and the pitiful situation of Hungarian language schools in relation to the new laws inflicted upon companies who'd like to further educate their workers. In the meantime they read out some stories and poems as well but they all ended up with a comment from someone in relation to our situation and everyone pausing in silence. And I didn't really know how much of it I was to translate to Sam, and I was wondering why we cannot just forget about everything for a couple of hours. Why must I hear a thousand times to be a good girl, work hard, do my best, keep my head up, try to save our asses, bla bla bla... I liked one of the stories, though, I'll try to find it somehow (easiest way would be to ask for the title, I guess).
Another nice Christmas deed I encountered was in the morning. As I was walking down the street and a man (a total stranger) offered to give me a lift. We've been living there for 8 years now and if I'd like to add up the occasions someone offered to give a lift the average would be around once a year, so isn't it something. In times like that my heart is content and I don't need tinsels and supermarket music to tell me what time of the year it is.
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