Selected Cronicas

MY CHRISTMAS

When the children were small and had to be in bed long before midnight, we decided to forgo the traditional Christmas Eve Supper and have a celebration lunch on Christmas Day itself. The children eventually grew up but we continued to exchange gifts on Christmas Morning and celebrate over lunch.

With no supper to prepare on Christmas Eve, I had the evening to myself. But for the last three or four years I have fulfilled a solemn commitment on that evening.

This came about when I asked a girl, whom I did not know all that well, how I should spend my Christmas Eve. She immediately replied: ‘Do what I do on Christmas Eve. I take enough pills to make me sleep for forty-eight hours.’ I was astonished and intrigued, and asked her to explain. ‘Christmas always brings back sad memories. My father and mother both died at Christmas. After they were gone, I could never bring myself to celebrate Christmas again.’ I pointed out the danger of taking so many pills and warned her that, instead of sleeping for forty-eight hours, she might find herself sleeping forever.

Then I had an idea: perhaps in future we could spend Christmas Eve together and dine out in some restaurant. We could meet around eight o’clock in the evening and then she would see for herself how the city’s restaurants were full of people with neither a home nor anything resembling a home where they might spend Christmas Eve. After dinner she drops me off at my apartment and then goes to fetch an aunt who always accompanies her to Midnight Mass. We agreed that we would share the bill for dinner and exchange presents: presents to remind us that we have each other.

But one Christmas my friend had to cancel our arrangement and, though knowing that I was not religious, she gave me a Holy Missal. I opened it to find that she had written inside: Pray for me.

The following September, a fire broke out in my apartment which left me so badly burned that I hovered between life and death for several days. My bedroom was completely destroyed. Plaster fell from the ceiling and walls, my furniture and books were reduced to ashes.

I shall make no attempt to explain what caused the fire. But strange to relate, my Missal remained intact, apart from some slight damage to the cover.