A time to come together | What Christmas means to me
My earliest memory of Christmas is Home Alone…no, not actually home alone-although that holds interesting possibilities-I mean the movie. It’s my favourite movie of the holiday season.
Isuri Dayaratne
If we have a Christmas tradition then it definitely has to be these movies. My family doesn’t really celebrate the holiday, so we spend our Christmas eve and day lounging in front of the TV with food and drinks, watching the entire spectrum of holiday movies out there. We also make use of the time everyone gets off to squeeze in overdue family trips and much needed vacations. A lot of people who spend the day in a little more festive way are probably thinking ‘you poor thing’ right now but strangely enough, I like it!
When I was abroad for college things were a little more properly Christmassy. I’d help my friends make cards and trees and actually attended proper Christmas dinners and stuff. I might not be one for Christmas celebrations but I’ll never say no to a Christmas meal (and really, what sane human being would?). I absolutely love glazed ham, and what better time than Christmas to get my dose for the year?
This year I’ve been pretty busy with a project I’m doing for an app company. They’re making a children’s educational app and I’ve been tasked with designing a greeting card for their fundraiser project. It’s taking up a huge chunk of my time at the moment-I guess you could even say it’s the most Christmassy thing I’ve done so far this year! We’ve also just released the audiobook for a children’s book I illustrated (The Boy Who Slept in the Sky, with author Sulochana Dissanayake), so there’s a lot of technicalities there that needs to be taken care of.
As for my family,well, funnily enough, they’re getting ready for a pirith ceremony on Christmas day. It’s probably the last thing anyone would associate with Christmas but hey, everyone’s got their own thing and this is ours. It might not be about tinsel and holly (and unfortunately, not glazed ham either) but I’ve always thought of Christmas as a time when my entire family gets together. We sit together, have meals together, and watch movies together. Everyone’s so busy that it’s very rare this happens and for me that’s the real magic of the season. It brings families together, and that’s why I firmly believe you could be from any religion or background, but still enjoy the holiday spirit and the festive cheer and warmth it brings to your home!