The first Christmas when I’m not staying with my family and not visiting my relatives, not having all the traditions from Christmas food to the presents being opened together around a real pine tree decorated with the same Christmas balls as every year. So - how was my Christmas then, lacking all of these?
First of all here’s my text "Missing the Christmas at home" was published on 24.12. in Salon seudun sanomat (a local newspaper of my home town where’s a page for young writers every Saturday). You'll find the text opened up a bit in English when you scroll down, after the "article"!
I write about how I feel about the thought of not being at home at Christmas: sad and hoping I would have as special Christmas as possible here in Lapland . I also tell about the silence that falls down at Pallas and amazes me. Sometimes when I walk out the door and when it isn’t windy and no cars going (there are cars driving there very seldom), there’s just a silence and not a noise from anywhere, it’s so silent that it starts humming in your ears. It’s so beautiful! And in the end of my text I wish to everybody, whether they were alone, with friends or with family at Christmas, a very merry Christmas and especially to my family at home a very lovely Christmas!In the text I'm also telling about this big package that I received on Monday the 19.12. from the post elf at the elf post office. It was HUGE and when I opened it and tore all of the papers and Christmas papers from it there was a suitcase in there!! I became so glad that my parents had sent me one because I have been in a need for a new one (have been borrowing one from my parents)!
I was so happy about my new suitcase that it took a while before I understood I maybe should take a look inside the suitcase aswell. And when I then did open the suitcase I saw a tiny Christmas tree, decorations, candles, two gifts, loads of gingerbread cookies made by my mom... I sat there alone on the floor of our elf staff room, staring at this opened suitcase on the floor, forgot totally about my intention to take a photo serie of myself opening the present, and started crying so hard that I almost couldn't breathe. To see all these christmassy things and realize that my parents really want me to have a Christmas here too even though I'm not at home... To realize once more and very well this time that I truly reallly not am going to spend my Christmas at home... I felt so devastated! All these gingerbread cookies and stuff, my mom is unbelievable! I called her a sobby phone call and thanked her so much...
Some of us elves went to have a breakfast together at the hotel. That was our first time having a breakfast there so it kind of felt a bit special, while otherwise it didn’t really feel like Christmas Eve when I woke up in the morning. Somehow it felt like we have to do something special in order to get the Christmas feeling. I had a day off but after the breakfast I did want to go and be with the customers (I already had had one day off and it felt absurd as I was used to have one day off per week and I really missed the families already after being one day away from them). So I joined in one of the 30 minutes’ snow shoe walk and had a lovely time having snowball fights and being thrown in the snow like thousand times :D
Afterwards when my elf friends continued with the snow shoe walks after the first one I went inside (in the reception or as I would like to call it “lobby” ;)) and started playing the best game ever – THE FROG GAME! And how simple is that: you just have some frogs of different colors and you try to get them jump into a little yellow bucket. I can tell you guys: this game is severely addictive and can have very positive impact on your mood. I recommend! We played the game and people changed, some left and some came, and soon I noticed I’m playing alone with a granny of one of my favorite families. Or it was her who realized it first actually :D She went like “Oh Dreamer look at this, here we are two adults playing the frog game without any children, and yet having such a good time!” I agreed totally and said that this is quite a nice way of spending the Christmas Eve! :D
I had to drive my elf friend home (she’s kind of local and needed a ride home) and that turned out to be quite an adventure of the Christmas Eve! We went via a skiing centre Olos because we had to leave one car there. There are French tourists staying there at the hotel and when we were already starting from the yard I saw these tourists coming out for a smoke. I waved to them from the car (in my very own over excited way :D) and they waved to me to come out to them. I went and amazed them with my top French skills (read: skills like saying “I work in Pallas” and “Merry Christmas” :D) and gave them big elf hugs and they would've wanted me to come with them and party in the evening ;) Buuut we had to go and on our way back I saw one lonely Santa Claus (one of the Real One's helpers, I think) coming from some house and I just said to my elf friends "what is that Santa Claus doing there?!" until I realized some seconds later that YES, it IS the Christmas Eve!!! Hadn't still really quite understood it.
When I got back home my dad called me and that's when I remembered I still had some presents to open! My dad had sent me a thick letter and said that I should call him before I open it on Christmas Eve. So I started opening it while being on the phone with my father. Inside the envelope there was a DVD that my dad apparently had wrote some instructions on, starting with "1. Be prepared with a tissue box." :D
Before I got home I had just thought "Oh well, this is not going too bad, I have had quite a nice Christmas Eve with laughing and elfing around, haven't cried at all! Maybe I already cried so much in advance so now I don't have to!" Oh boy what I was wrong... And oh boy how much I missed my family! I called every one of them and thanked them. Special thank you goes to my father who had gathered all these video clips from all the important people... Had made such a big work!! And what a great idea that was... Can't believe it still that I got an amazing present like that! You just should've seen my face while watching all these vide clips, I'm sure it would've been crazy (Nutcracker was too busy keeping me in one piece and supporting me so she couldn't take photos)!
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After the sauna I opened the last presents and I got this craziest hat ever - a bunny hat from my brother and his girlfriend! I just loooove it ^^
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So I had a different but a great Christmas Eve. And I kind of had my family with me throughout the day, that was cool!
I'm trying to update tomorrow if I have time, about how the life has been after the last tourist groups left on Monday. Is there really a life after the Elfiness? We'll see it the next time I post!
Take care!
Lots of elf hugs,
Dreamer
So I had a different but a great Christmas Eve. And I kind of had my family with me throughout the day, that was cool!
I'm trying to update tomorrow if I have time, about how the life has been after the last tourist groups left on Monday. Is there really a life after the Elfiness? We'll see it the next time I post!
Take care!
Lots of elf hugs,
Dreamer
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