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Merry Christmas… sort of

2009-12-24

Officially, it’s now Christmas Eve, even though nothing here rembinds me of Christmas save for the omnipresent songs on the radio, in shops, at the university and some random Christmas trees. Here are some reasons why I don’t feel it’s Christmas (there are of course more reasons, these are just examples): the weather forecast says it’ll be around 22 degrees centigrade tomorrow, my family is on the other side of the world, I have PE class tomorrow. Still, it is the 24th and thus Christmas Eve, so I’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

I plan to celebrate together with friends in Tapei tomorrow (a guy from Sweden and his Taiwanese wife). I’m looking forward both to the dinner and to meeting them again, but I’m not sure what I think about celebrating Christmas in general. I feel that, living abroad, I have two choices, because given that I’m not religious at all, Christmas for me is about things that are impossible to replicate in a foreign country (friends and family). The first choice is to ignore Christmas, which tends to be quite easy (see the reasons above). Since few things remind me of Christmas, this is surprisingly easy. The other choice is to try to celebrate some sort of symbolic version of Chrismas, which I’ll try to do tomorrow evening. I think that’ll be harder, but I’m sure it’ll be nice whether it resembles Christmas or not.

I’ve now depleted whatever pseudo-insightful things I had on my mind, so it’s time to round this off with the greeting that made me write this post in the first place: Merry Christmas, God Jul, 聖誕快樂, Joyeux Noël or whatever you prefer!

in Blog, In English, Taiwan | 6 comments

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  1. Storebror med familj’s avatar

    Storebror med familj on 2009-12-24 at 18:30

    God Jul och Gott Nytt År Olle!
    Vi tänker på dig och längtar.
    Julkramar från fam Gunnarsson

    Reply

    1. Olle Linge’s avatar

      Olle Linge on 2009-12-26 at 14:16

      Kram, god jul och gott nytt år till er alla! Jul är nog den tid som är svårast att vara borta hemifrån, även om det ändå fungerar rätt bra.

      Reply

    2. Niklas’s avatar

      Niklas on 2009-12-24 at 20:13

      Ja hade behövt dig ida…
      Rut har smitit iväg så ja va ensam simhoppare i simhallen ida…

      God Jul o sola lugnt i midvintervärmen

      Reply

      1. Olle Linge’s avatar

        Olle Linge on 2009-12-26 at 14:16

        Haha. :) Ja, det är lättare att vara galen om man är två. :)

        Reply