Until very recently the voices of the children of San Ildefonso marked the beginning of the Christmas. The lottery draw and the jackpot meant that we were already in the Christmas period. Now everything starts much earlier with the lighting of the christmas lights in the cities, especially since the mayors have become crazy, frantically competing for the number of light bulbs; For the youngest, the starting signal is the super discounts of the last month of November – the famous Black Friday– and, for the devout, with the arrival of the Advent four weeks before December 25. Even some traditions are forgotten, such as placing the birth on the bridge of the constitution, not because of the Magna Carta, but because of the celebration on December 8 of the Immaculate.
But regardless of when these holidays begin, what will never change are the things that happen and we feel at Christmas. No one can take away the taste of that smell of hot chocolate on Three Kings Day, that warm nostalgia of hearing a carol – be it Anglo-Saxon, Spanish or Flamenco – or the joy of meeting people you love and haven’t seen in a long time, even if you end up arguing with them after ten minutes.
The origin of Christmas will be forgotten, but not the values that inspired it, that are still very present even in those who repudiate the word and transform it into various euphemisms. We will continue to give gifts to those who deserve it, as the shepherds did two thousand years ago to the Baby Jesus; We will continue to summon those closest to us in the warmth of home, just as Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary sought the warmth of the Bethlehem stable; we will continue celebrating with happiness life, that we are survivors of the year in turn, in exactly the same way that the Christ Child survived Herod and his slaughter of innocents.
Many things will happen, but the spark in the eyes of the children when these weeks approach, the tears in the eyes of parents and grandparents when they see those who only return now, the salivation of that table set with so many delicacies, the polar cold that reminds us of the luck of having a home and a family –be it blood or affection– and the healthy laziness of knowing that you don’t have to get up early, even for a couple of days.
It will ring in your house king’s speechthe comedy show with its hilarious laughter or the mix of best-selling songs, but there will always be a Christmas soundtrack very different from other times of the year, a melody that mixes joy, kindness and melancholia. You will make kilometer trips with great or little desire, you will regret or not having gone to that family dinner, you will support or get angry at the one who always rants about these dates… but that will continue to be the case. It will still be Christmas, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the gift you expected or the tenth prize or that you can’t see who you love because there will always be another Christmas for it.