Day 07- Favourite memory
Obviously, in context, this means 'favourite Christmas memory'. And as other people doing this meme have said earlier today, it's a difficult one to answer, because it is in the very character of Christmas that you repeat the same things every year. That repetition makes it difficult to distinguish specific individual memories, and distorts the picture by merging different years' experiences into one.
I've always enjoyed the parties which my parents have held on either Christmas Eve itself or the 23rd December, for example, but I think the memory of those which is now in my head is a sort of amalgamation of all the best bits of all the parties we ever hosted. Since that was a good five or six of them, I don't really want to nominate any individual one of those parties as my favourite Christmas memory, because I am far from sure that the experiences I'm remembering really belong to one individual party.
So I'll go for a distinct moment which I really can remember, in large part thanks to it being recorded on my LJ. It's a quiet one, featuring me on my own, sitting up late after everyone else had gone to bed and watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone while wrapped up in a quilt just in front of a television turned down as low as possible in order not to disturb my mother in the bedroom immediately upstairs, while the embers in the fire sank slowly into the grate and there were copious chocolates lying on the lounge floor around me, all within easy reach.
That might not seem like a very sociable memory, but I've chosen it not just for the moment itself, but for the fact that the reason I enjoyed that experience so much was because it came after a really lovely family Christmas day, and indeed several days of festive jollity with all sorts of different family and friends beforehand. Sitting up late by myself at the end of it all, surrounded by warmth, comfort and indulgence, gave me the chance to look back over the previous few days, hug the memories to myself and appreciate how good it had all been. I was wrapped not just in my quilt, but in a hearty dose of the Christmas spirit - and that is why that moment now stands in my memory as a place which I aspire to get to at the end of every Christmas.
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I've always enjoyed the parties which my parents have held on either Christmas Eve itself or the 23rd December, for example, but I think the memory of those which is now in my head is a sort of amalgamation of all the best bits of all the parties we ever hosted. Since that was a good five or six of them, I don't really want to nominate any individual one of those parties as my favourite Christmas memory, because I am far from sure that the experiences I'm remembering really belong to one individual party.
So I'll go for a distinct moment which I really can remember, in large part thanks to it being recorded on my LJ. It's a quiet one, featuring me on my own, sitting up late after everyone else had gone to bed and watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone while wrapped up in a quilt just in front of a television turned down as low as possible in order not to disturb my mother in the bedroom immediately upstairs, while the embers in the fire sank slowly into the grate and there were copious chocolates lying on the lounge floor around me, all within easy reach.
That might not seem like a very sociable memory, but I've chosen it not just for the moment itself, but for the fact that the reason I enjoyed that experience so much was because it came after a really lovely family Christmas day, and indeed several days of festive jollity with all sorts of different family and friends beforehand. Sitting up late by myself at the end of it all, surrounded by warmth, comfort and indulgence, gave me the chance to look back over the previous few days, hug the memories to myself and appreciate how good it had all been. I was wrapped not just in my quilt, but in a hearty dose of the Christmas spirit - and that is why that moment now stands in my memory as a place which I aspire to get to at the end of every Christmas.
Click here if you would like view this entry in light text on a dark background.