Christmas feeling

There’s something strange about Christmas when you’re an adult. How everything you once longed for as a child – the smells, the tastes, the atmosphere – is suddenly your own responsibility. And one’s own right.

To stand there and choose a pine tree. Not this tree as the one, large, defining Christmas tree – but this tree, in a long line of future trees. Another fifty, if we’re lucky. To experience it now with the children, knowing that it doesn’t have to be perfect, just present.

It doesn’t matter that we are tired. It doesn’t matter if someone has chickenpox. We have NK coin. Christmas. Noisette. The dog lies on the carpet and sits down, as always. There is a silence in not trying to save or improve everything.

I often think about how many of my childhood dreams were very simple. To decide for yourself. Being able to show what you like. Being allowed to stay at home. And how magical it is that exactly that – the most mundane thing – is now returning.

We’ve slowed down. Not only in terms of pace, but also in terms of ambition. This is a frugal Christmas, not just in the sense that I’m not drinking, but in the fact that we’re here. No escape, no excess, no flitting between things that don’t really matter.

We are tired, yes. But that’s the kind of fatigue you deserve. The one that comes after a year of real life. Now it’s free. Now we have landed.

And that’s enough.

Here are some inspiring photos that evoke exactly that feeling for me. Go ahead. Hug