PAGES FROM A CHRISTMAS DIARY

 

In one of my favourite books, a collection of essays titled The Olive Tree by Aldous Huxley, there is a delightful, imaginary paragraph when he talks about the tradition of acquiring the Christmas tree. Huxley wrote:

 

“The tree, of course, was a mere accident. If Queen Victoria had married a Frenchman we should probably be giving one another etrennes and ushering in the year with a series of calls on the most remote and the most personally antipathetic of our innumerable relations. (Relations, in France, are innumerable.) As it was, she took to herself a prince from the land of tannenbaums. It is therefore a tannenbaum’s green branches, and upon Christmas Day, that we attach our gifts.”

 

~ Aldous Huxley ~ 
From his essay titled, New-Fashioned Christmas (Ref: The Olive Tree And Other Essays)

 

Alas, it is not a mere accident in my case for knowing a dear friend, Gordon for many years and he insisted that I must buy a tree for the house. He went through the poetical expansion of his reasons on why I should buy the tree but the gist of it was that it is a tradition and that he needed to rescue me before I became quite alone like Dickens’ Scrooge.   

 

A tiny log cabin outside of the shop that sells Christmas trees...I adore miniatures

 

Last year, I had a small Christmas tree to celebrate my first Christmas after I moved here to the small fishing village from a big city. But this year, I have had too much travelling with work for several weeks and dwelled too much on my pending jobs that I almost forgot the Christmas celebration. Once these subjects get into my mind, it is not easy to dismiss them and I can’t write or read.  it is not a bad thing to be jolted out of a long brooding. The ritualistic shopping to buy presents for friends and families has to be postponed and a pile of Christmas cards is still waiting to be written on the table. According to my local post office, the last posting date for Christmas is today, 19^th of December.

 

There are times when I envy and admire those people who can organise it all months ahead of time. What a blissful state to be in, I thought, for not cramming your present-buying into these last few hectic days.

So, in the end, I made a promise to Gordon that I would go and buy the tree for the house if he would give me a lift to a place where they sell the tree. Since I am not motorised, buying the tree and carrying it home on the bus or on the train is the most daunting task. Gordon took me to the place where he has always been buying his and his parents’ trees for many years in a little rural village surrounded by forestry and agricultural land in the north east of Scotland.



A beautiful scenery before arriving to Ballater, Scotland

 

Ballater, Scotland - The tall, pine trees on the hills - the reminder of a tribal culture and a spiritual life that have become extinct among ourselves, a fierce bright blue sky, the cold crispness in the air, more vivid still, is my memory of the smell: a pungency of burning peat, freshness of resin and mountain streams, with the fallen, decaying leaves of the forest... 

 

Before we picked up the tree, we decided to take a high road to go up further north to make the most of what daylight was still left to a quintessentially Scottish town called Ballater located in the heart of the Cairngorm Mountains. Being so close to the summer holiday home of the royal family, Balmoral Castle, originally acquired by the Queen Victoria, this place seems to be devoted to all things that the British upper classes love; horse riding, fishing, hunting and shooting. For an ordinary visitor, it is the most picturesque place to relax if you enjoy bike rides, walks and beaches, summer ceilidhs, Highland games and Scottish country dances.

 

Anna Moffo, Gordon's favourite singer. He takes her CDs to listen in his car wherever he goes...

As we drive up the hills and the mountains luxuriantly clad in the scented Scottish pine trees, we listen to the beautiful voice of Anna Moffo (Gordon’s favourite soprano) in the car. There are 10 CDs in this sublime compilation featuring the early recordings and it is titled:  “The Beauty and The Voice”. I will never forget the most memorable experience of listening to Anna Moffo, driving upward to the purity of the high hills as Moffo’s voice goes higher, looking down at the steep hairpin bends as her voice fades away into falling cadences, gazing at the soft colours of the hills are as feminine as the voice of Moffo and they compose into the universal harmony in which the two elements; musical and natural sublime begin to mingle and become alive.

 

 

 

Lonely roads were unyielding. We didn't see anyone and no cars on the road. 

 

There are phosphorescent lights in the sky, and the mountains are chameleonlike, taking colour from the sun and standing still in the cold wind. Such should be the transcendental moment in one’s life after one has a chance to experience this imprisoned luxury that thrills the senses and emotions.

 

 

 

 

We never expect such a change of temperature to take place when we came out of the car. The whole town is standing in its wonderful stillness, unspoilt by the noise of traffic or the mercenary loudness of the tourists. Although the sun, burnished so brightly for one of its briefest stays of the year, it does not really possess the heat and the warmth. Sharp, crisp cold wind, ceaselessly blowing, permeates the whole town and as the temperature drops, frost on the grass, white enough to make us believe there was a light fall of snow. 

I remember a verse from one of Sir Walter Scott’s poems:

Heap on more wood! The wind is chill;

But let it whistle as it will,

We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.    

Out of the usual tourist season, the whole town is serene, magical, peaceful and unspoilt

 

 

 

 

 

Strolling along the street with Gordon, I become aware of the hushed significance of the privileges, the royal warrants of appointment that can be seen proudly decorated on the walls outside the shops. The royal warrant means it’s a seal approval, ah! yes, it is exceptional, nothing like it happens to the majority and it is Darwin’s Natural Selection.  



There are many shops with the signs of Royal Warrant of Appointment, showing off their good quality products and royal patronage. It is intriguing to witness how the other half lives.

 



Rocksalt & Snail is the best café in town

After we have our lunch, it is the time to part from this picturesque town. The whole morning, walking around the quiet streets, looking at the shops and browsing the books in the bookshops of this town has been blissful. But the time has gone so fast as if there is no consistent measure of its length. Once it has gone, never to come back again – not even with the royal warrants.  

 

On our way back home, we collect the Christmas tree. The gentleman at the shop is most helpful in finding the best tree while we stand among the trees and pretend that we are lost in the woods, inhale the aromatic and fragrant resin and nocturnal scents from the rainy pine trees and listen to the piped sounds of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” coming from the shop’s radio in the background.

 

 

The sun is setting behind the pine trees. Nothing moves. The hills and the trees are almost in a trance. After many hours of mystical experience, I feel ready to decorate my Christmas tree and the true spirit of Christmas has returned to me. It is very seldom that my friend, Gordon interrupts my way of life but the quietness of his few remarks shows the authority that he has when it comes to dispelling the air of my melancholies and doubts and is the proof of how often we should and must talk together.

 

Danny Wright's Just Wright for Christmas is one of my favourite Christmas music played on piano solo. I listen to this CD every year when I decorate my tree at home. It gives me a renewed passion and inspiration in the time of celebration.

Today, after my morning cup of  tea, I decided to decorate my tree while I listened to my favourite Christmas music, Danny Wright’s Just Wright for Christmas. When I took out the Guardian newspapers from last weekend to read while I had my cup of tea, a small packet fell out from the folded newspapers. It is a little gift from Gordon, hidden inside the newspapers. What a pleasant surprise!! In a little note, he said, “I thought that this would keep you going when you decorate your beautiful Christmas tree. With love, Gordon”.

 

A lovely gift from Gordon, my favourite sweets from Konditorei Heinemann - their website here

 

This little packet contains one of my most favourite sweets (sugar dusted champagne truffles) from Konditorei Heinemann based in Dusseldorf, Germany. This is awfully sweet of him. He definitely knows how to make me smile. Perhaps, the love of finer things in life, so dear to the hearts of the Romantics, is one of the links of our friendship.

 

 

 

I wish you a very happy Christmas and New Year. May god bless you and grant you every happiness, love, good health and prosperous new year.