It’s Christmas and I will take some time off and see my family in the city they live in. I kinda refuse to call it home cause in fact it isn’t my home. It’s been for seventeen years but it’s not anymore, it’s merely the city I grew up in. It’s a nice place, I’d come back when I’m old and raise my children there, just to make sure they neither turn out as spoilt city kids, nor shy countryside children. But it is, however, not less pathetic than any other suburb.

I’m going to spend Christmas with my parents, brother and grandparents on my mother’s side who are the only people I’d ever call family. And I guess we’re just like you: tree, food, presents. We even go to church, though I believe it just became some kind of routine as our kindergarten always did the nativity play there. First it was me on stage, then my brother and in the end we just kept going every year. Protestants are very open-minded, everyone’s free to join them if they like and free to leave it if they’ve got something better to do.

My parents live in a new house, I’d call it big although it’s probably very tiny to normal people’s standards. It’s in the same area, about ten minutes walk from their old flat. I often dream about our old flat, I’ve spent about twelve years of my life there, moved out in a hurry, returned a few times and never came back. I don’t know what happened to it, I’ve heard the guy who owns it now teared down most of the walls and made it three big rooms. I dream about it a lot, it haunts me sometimes and it’s probably a sign I miss it more than I’d admit and that it unsettles me not having a place I can come back to, a place that reminds me of my childhood.

Christmas is weird. I love the atmosphere, the christmassy mood, I’ve always loved it although I’ve never been much of a family person. I loved the trees, the lights, making presents. Getting up early the next morning, eating chocolate and playing with my new things. But it changed. I’ve changed. I’m scared of good moments because I can’t grasp them and make them last forever. I’m afraid of owning things because it feels like a burden and the idea of possession drives me insane. This year I just want to sit back, observe it, inhale it, make it last.  Only this one time, let Christmas be what it used to be. I’m looking forward to it.