The magic of Christmas

I was very happy to be invited to the Tesco Christmas in July event that was in, well, July. Actually, that's not entirely correct. When I got the email inviting me to the event I was standing on the side line of a football pitch looking at Ron playing football and Yon playing with imaginary animals, there were people around. I literally jumped up and down. Might have been a few times. Because it was my first event ever, and because it's Christmas. Now for all who doesn't know, let's get this out of the way at the beginning - I am Jewish. We are all Jewish. And we celebrate Christmukah every year since we left Israel. You can find my very long (and I think really good) explanation of why we chose to celebrate Christmukah in this post I wrote a few years back. But if you want the short version, it's what I explained to Ron last year when we were walking home from the dentist and saw the first decorated tree of the year (yes, we are nosey and we peek through people's windows) - everyone needs a bit of Magic in their lives.
If I had to choose one sentence to sum up my life, it will probably be something else, but this will be one of the top five for sure. I believe in Magic. I know you are nodding your head in pity, I know you think I am naive, that people my age should be wiser, should be more cynical, should at least not advertise their childish and immature beliefs to everyone on the internet. Well, first of all, in my head I am the only one who reads the blog anyway, and I already know all my quirks. Second of all, I really do believe that everyone needs a little Magic in their lives.
And Christmukah is the embodiment of it.

So for me, being invited to an event that meant spending a few hours in a room surrounded by beautiful Christmasy things, and get a chance to look at all the Christmas decorations, have a tree, eat Christmas food and just be in the middle of Christmas, was like, I want to say going to church / synagogue if you are religious, but I think it might be constructed as disrespectful, so I am going with - like taking Ron to an Arsenal match. I was NOT disappointed. The Tesco people worked really hard and put on a great Christmas show for us, complete with all the trimmings (I was a bit disappointed that they didn't made us all wear red Santa hats while walking around though...). They worked on it for months, it took them a week to set up the room itself, and I don't even dare to think how long it took the poor soul who glued all those magnificent biscuits houses.

 

The cake guys (we talked only to the sweets people) told us they start working on the Christmas offerings come February. In fact January is the only month of the year that isn't christmas for them. I was torn - on the one hand they have Christmas all year round, but on the other hand maybe it's like working in a chocolate factory and you get tired of it after a while. Would you want to have Christmas all year long? Isn't some of the magic in that it only comes around for a few short weeks (okay three months, but you know what I mean)? I don't know. I asked, and they told me they still love Christmas, but I think it takes the magic and fun out of it...
I had to admit though, that everything looked really delicious (my taster said it really was very tasty)

One. Of the several. Sweets tables.

Polar bear cupcakes! 

I don't know if you are like me, but every time I see that red & white I don't think football, but Christmas, and it makes me smile. 

I guess it's the whole light out of darkness thing. We have a very nice saying in Hebrew about the fact that a tiny light can light up all the darkness, but all the darkness in the world can't put out a tiny light. I love this saying, I tell it to the kids whenever I can, because I think that's what life is all about, what Christmas, Hannukah, love, religion are all about - that tiny light. I have to quote my favorite book of all times, The Lord Of The Ring here, to say that "Yet dawn is ever the hope of men". For me, Christmukah is about believing in that light, that dawn, that Magic.

 

My love of Magic doesn't make me less aware of the fact that life is pretty damn hard. We all have to struggle most every hour of every day. Some with money, some with love, some with health. Some with more than one category. My 2013 hasn't been an easy one, and I so wanted it to be. The truth is I am writing this post in July (but it is published today for the first time) and I had one hell of half a year. I don't really see it calming down. It never does. When we lived in Gib we had a wall-sticker about learning to dance in the rain. I think we should buy a new one (ah, a great Christmas gift!) to remind ourselves to embrace it all, because in the end life is the journey, or what happens when you are busy making other plans, or what we are all trying to survive.
But every year, for one month, life looks just a little bit different. The world looks more colourful, the light shine just a tad brighter, the love is a bit stronger, and you can feel it in the air - the hope.
The Christmas.

This post is part of the BritMums project with Tesco