Sublimity…

While I feel I shoul wish you all a “Merry Christmas”, it seems a little strange because it doesn’t really feel like Christmas to me here. Over the last couple of days, there have been occasional reminders that it is reaching the peak of the holiday season back home (the most memorable being a guy dressed in a Santa suit – including a plastic mask with not only a long white beard but also peachy skin – dancing on a table to Indian electronic beats outside a pastry shop in Udaipur and a “Merry Christmas” sign on a rtizy jewlery store on the Udaipur City Palace grounds) but in all cases, they just seem to be bad gimicks to try and attract foreign tourists into the relevant shops. As bad as it is back at home, this to me seems like the ultimate commericalization of Christmas, so after covertly appreciating the irony and hilarity of the various gimicks, I quickly retreat the other way.

1123Today is December 24th (my goodness how time flies!) and so for many it marks Christmas Eve, but as I was cycling along the south coast of Diu this morning enjoying the beaches, warm breeze and sun (see photo taken today which is kinda like my Christmas Card to you all!), I realized that you can’t have Christmas Eve without a Christmas, and at the rate things are going now, I don’t think tomorrow is going to feel all that special. I realized that Christmas for me can be boiled down to a fairly short list of things:

1. Family (or at least friends) together to share the holidays with
2. A Christmas Tree, and not just any one but a two story, home cut conifer, all decked out in magical little coloured lights, gingerbread cookies and memorable decorations
3. Snow, plain and simple, Christmas has to be white

With only two of the above, it would still be Christmas though it would feel somewhat lacking, with only one it would be a nice holiday with a hint of Christmas, but without any of them it’s just another day, and as nice a place as Diu is, and as much fun as I am having, I certainly don’t have any of the three requisites here with me. I’ve considered going out for a fancy supper tonight to try to make up for the traditional Christmas Eve supper I’m missing at home, but even if I could find anyone here willing to try to cook lasagne and creamed onions, I don’t think I’d trust them to do it right (I have been systematically avoiding “continental” food here as Indians have a tendancy to be able to screw up anything they don’t regularly eat themselves) and anything else would feel like a bit of a sham. In an effort to find something special to do to mark Christmas, I’ve even considered actually going to church here (being an old Portugese colony, there’s a few around and a substantial Christian population) but church has never been part of Christmas (or regular life) at home and although Indian Christianity could be different (and interesting), I have a feeling that I wouldn’t and I’d get more of the side of Christianity that annoys me (the practice of it) than the part that interests me (the morality and magic). One other option I considered is an event going on tonight at a local hotel that was advertised on slips of paper given to everyone at the resturant I was at last night, but it was advertised as a mostly musical event featuring contry, blues, choral, Dylan and “groves”. As curious as I am about what a hippie foreigner Christmas party would be like (and how you could turn Dylan into Christmas music), I think I’m going to save my Rs. 50 and give it a pass.

However, I did find one thing here to celebrate Christmas with – a pound cake at a fancy bakery outside of town. It’s a little funny beacuse the tradition of having pound cake on Christmas Day isn’t even our own tradition, but one that we’ve semi adopted due to the tradition we’ve developed of having Christmas supper with some friends, one of whom has a Christmas supper pound cake tradition. I know it’s not going to be as good as what I’ve become used to (and I think the one we have is actually pretty different/unique than normal), but it looked like it could be good (although looks here can be deceiving, especially with western deserts – Indians should work for cooking magazines where only looks count) and I was feeling an urge for something different to eat after having eaten nothing but coconut (dried, green and milk) all day (as the fable goes, “too much of anything can leave one with a feeling of regret”). I managed to get it back to my hotel without eating it, so I’ll save it for tomorrow as it should be (which also puts off the likely disappointment).

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m having a great time, it’s just that it’s not Christmas for me. And as much as I love/miss that special time of year, I know it’ll come again soon for me – a year isn’t that long a time as I’ve come to realize here. So for all of you who are fortunate enough to be able to have the kind of Christmas you want, enjoy it, but this year I think I’m going to count myself into the other category and just give it a pass. In a strange way it gives me a bit of understanding/sympathy for the people who hate Christmas (and yes, they do exist), but unlike them, I’ll be looking forward to the next one with twice as much enthusiasm.

For now though, it’s off to the beach by starlight to see if I can get my dose of December magic usually filled via evenings gazing at the Christmas Tree…

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 24th, 2005 at 9:50 pm and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.