For a while this winter, for two weeks to be exact, this collection of mostly poetic scribbles will turn into more of a travel blog – or even be suspended and unused (depending on internet connections and down-time to write). In 79 days I am off on what will be the adventure of a life-time for me.
Ever since my return from Switzerland in 2001 I have talked about it: I do not want to celebrate Christmas in Sweden. In fact, I don’t really fancy celebrating Christmas much at all! Christmas is a holiday for children and hysterical sales-people, and since I don’t have siblings or children I am the youngest person in my family and could hardly be described as a child (though at time slightly childish)… We have abolished the Christmas gifts, shrunk the traditional Christmas dinner down to not much and barely do more with that day than any other during the year.
Furthermore, even if I celebrate my official birthday in summer (or the anniversary of my 25th birthday as I prefer to call it), the biological one is lodged like a big, icy angst-ridden winter nightmare in between Christmas and New Years and there is no getting around the fact that I tend to feel alone, old and abandoned on that day. This year is even worse, since at about 4.16pm on that horrible day I will have to start telling people I am no longer in my 30s.
Photo: CC Champagne
So ten years have gone by, and every year I have ended up spending Christmas with my parents (whom I do love dearly) and the rest of the family (adoptive aunt and paternal grandparents) in cold, dark and generally miserable Sweden, except for one Christmas spent with the then-boyfriend and his family in cold, dark and generally miserable Essex, England while I lived in London. *shudders* Life has always gotten in the way, priorities have always been made and I have always made do with what I have had. The ultimate dream of celebrating Christmas in a beach chair on a white, sandy beach with a cocktail in my hand (one of those silly things with a tiny umbrella in it) while looking out at turquoise seas (and possibly handsome men in sexy swimwear) has remained a dream.
Like everyone I have bills to pay, friends who I feel guilty enough about not visiting and most of all I haven’t been well. And the thought of traveling alone scares me no ends! But this year is special. Not only am I feeling a lot better, but having actually worked for much of the year I had the chance to save a few kronor (the Swedish currency is a krona, plural: kronor) and with the help of my amazing parents I am now able to realise the dream! A trip to a warmer country for Christmas! Granted, I will still have to travel alone (it is the curse of being single), but I can’t let that stop me.
The choice of destination was, for a while, hotly debated in the parental household. I didn’t want to do what every other Swede does and fly off to Thailand in winter since, for some reason, I’m just not that interested (and if I wanted to spend Christmas with Swedes I could just as well stay home). I didn’t want to go somewhere where they might start a war at any second (so Israel and Egypt was out) and I didn’t want to go somewhere where there is nothing to do apart from lying on a beach enjoying the heat (which rules out places like Cap Verde). I want some historic places of interest to sink my teeth into and the chance to get to know something about a different culture (without being scared) if I should get tired of the beach… And of course my nest egg, proud though I am of it, isn’t that big, so I did have to consider the price (which rules out cruises in the Caribbean and the like). Finally it dawned on me… Tequila!!!
When I celebrated my 28th birthday, before I started doing the whole official birthday thing, I was in Switzerland. I had, only a month earlier, told my husband that I wanted to separate and things were pretty… Chaotic? Weird? Different? A colleague had kindly offered me to stay at her place while she was away for Christmas (if I cat-sat) and I had accepted. To make a long story short I celebrated at a local Mexican restaurant, a quiet Thursday night dinner with friends, turned into an epic tequila-induced hang-over the next day and it took me two months before I dared to go back to the restaurant and collect a shirt I’d (unknowingly) left there. For years after (even when I had left Switzerland) the waiters recognized me (and kept an extra eye on my tequila intake).
One might be forgiven for thinking I would stay as far away from the agave based liquid as possible after this experience, but no… One would be wrong. *smile* My brain doesn’t work that way and it has become tradition to have a shot of tequila on my birthday (although I’ve, thankfully, never repeated the epic hang-over inducing intake of that particular night). So tequila = Mexico… Mexico = white sandy beaches… Mexico = Mayan cultural heritage…
In December, 79 days from today, right before Christmas, I am saying bye-bye to snowy, cold and dark Sweden. In December I am realising a dream of ten years. In December I fly off to sunny Mexico, where I will NOT celebrate Christmas with a drink in my hand on a white sandy beach. And when I come back, next year,I will be a full decade older than I am today!
A Glass of Bubbly 