We’re already at the 22nd calendar window, and here comes a greeting from Germany, where Julia Freund is getting ready for Christmas with the family.
Advent in our family has always been a walk on a tightrope, as long as I can remember. I have seen Father Christmas almost fall off his rope, sometimes even just hanging on with one little finger, so many times, I can’t even count them. Ours is ot an easy family, some tempers flare more easy than others, and some characters just swallow their unhappiness and say nothing. Nobody talks, so usually two or so family members end up not talking to each other until right before Christmas.
As a child that weighed upon me heavily and when situations like that arise now, I’m happy to be out of the house and a grown up. Happy to only come home a couple of days before Christmas. We have four days until Christmas eve, and Mum and Dad are not talking. Yet. My mother apparently just told my little sister all about the meals she has been cooking the last two weeks for herself and Dad, and when my sister said, a bit confused, that she thought the two of them were not speaking to one another, my mother answered gleefully ‘no, not yet. But I’ll end it before Christmas, of course’. Of course. I’m almost 32 years of age, and it has taken me a while to see humor in the bad character traits of my family, but when I imagined our parents sitting at the table, eating something delicious my mother has cooked, all the while not talking, it had me burst out laughing. A sure sign I’m going to be as crazy as they are some day soon, I know, but familiy-wise we have to take what we can get.
… Although sometimes I’m tempted to bring one or more family members to the store and try to exchange them for a completely unchallenging pair of socks.
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Julia Freund is a German artist and illustrator who recently moved to Berlin from the south of France. She keeps a blog at Lineanongrata and some of her lovely images can be bought on Etsy: Lineanongrata
Thank you, Jorun, it’s perfect.