A tradition for Christmas that’s been going on since, a DOZEN years ago, translated…
At the end of the year, everywhere on the streets, you’d see those shop windows, with Christmas trees. And the songs came into the ears constantly, reminding me, that it’s the seasons again; my husband, my daughter and I, started scheduling our dates, made our way to that traditional date with Santa at the Regent Taipei.
Fifteen years ago, on Christmas Eve, the two of us took our young daughter to a wedding banquet at the Regent Taipei Hotel, my daughter who was in the sixth grade was attracted to the Christmas tree on the third floor, her eyes shone, and couldn’t take her eyes off of that tree. We watched, as the people lined up, to take photos with Santa, my daughter begged in a lowered voice, “Mommy, let’s get our picture with Santa too, okay?”
not my photo…
Seeing how everybody who’d gone up with their families flashed that grin from ear to ear, we too, were infected by that cheery atmosphere, and paid for the pictures, got in line.
Finally, it came our turn. Click-click! The worker hit the shutters on that Polaroid, and placed the slowly-appearing photo into a card, handed it to our daughter, and this image had, deeply, imprinted inside my mind. During that time, I’d been, wrecking my brains, thinking of way, to rekindle the love we have, to add something different to our ordinary lives; and, I was, inspired by that image of the full moon over a mountain top, with the cherry blossoms falling, I’d gotten excited, said, “Let’s, create our own blissful dates then!”
Right then and there, I’d agreed with my husband and daughter, that we will all, get our family photo with Santa, so the lights and flair of Christmas can, bear witness to our lives.
For many years now, I’d often, taken out that stack of cards ordered by the years, flipped to the inside to the photograph, and, counted out the changes we’d weathered through with each other. Looking at the person in the photograph, memories flooded back. Like that one from a decade ago, my daughter in her teenage years yelled, “I will NOT gain more weight than last year!”, still rang in my ears, and now, she’d received her master’s degree, and started working already.
My husband, who’s JUST as narcissistic as I am sighed, “Look how handsome I was back then! So good to be young, I’m almost sixty here!”, it’d reminded me of this line, “People loved themselves from a few years ago, but, why not, starting, to try, to like yourselves now?”, like is like a competitive run, with that “Must Win” banner on our backs, we must, work hard, to find that healthier, comfortable, lifestyle back again.
not my photograph…
Even though, some of our friends and relatives didn’t think what we’re doing was of any purpose at all, that it was, just getting our photos, that it didn’t have ANY magic. But, we’d lasted, over ten years now, isn’t that a rarity too?
At the end of the year, let’s have that Polaroid keep us all, in that freeze frame, ushering in the New Year.
So, this, is a family tradition that started when your child was a young child, and, it’d become, this sort of a tradition, because you’d found something worth doing, to keep track, of your lives together. And, every family SHOULD have one’s own special tradition, used to celebrate the holidays, so one day when you look back, you can say, oh, that was when………