Nú er hún gamla Grýla dauð
So, it's christmas. Has been christmas for 48 minutes at home, even! I'm just waiting for them to call me.
It's - weird. It doesn't feel like christmas at all. Partly for obvious reasons, of course, I'm not at home and thus missing out on all the traditional christmas preparations, but also - it's been increasingly more difficult for me in the last several years to get into a christmas mood. Probably because I'm just growing up and losing the child-like innocence, and stuff, but also - it takes a while to get into a christmas mood, and I usually don't allow myself to even think about it until after exams. At which point I'll only have a week or two to do everything, which is just not enough. But oh well.
So yeah, christmas has started at home. Right now they'll all be sitting in the dining room, which we never use as a dining room, eating hamborgarhryggur (pork) with sugared potatoes and mushroom sauce and have with it yellow beans (corn) and green beans and then there'll be rauðkál which I never eat and there'll be pineapple on the meat and jólaöl to go with it. And then later there'll be sugared oranges with whipped cream, and even later ice cream with chocolate sauce, and then chocolates and machintosh and cookies and basically everything you can eat. And after dinner the kids will pile around the christmas tree and read out the labels of the gifts, and distribute to each (and the younger kids will get so many more presents than the older ones, who will pretend not to sulk). Once that is done everyone will start opening, and there'll be wrapping paper everywhere, and yeah. The kids are mostly bigger by now, I'm 21, Daníel is 20, Heiða is 16 and Sara is 13, but I'm sure christmas will be kept as close to the way it was when we were all younger, because Alexander Jón is only 7, which is still the age where christmas is wonderful.
But then again, no. I'm not sure I'd want to be at home right now. Apart from my own depression, which has kept me from enjoying the last oh, 4 christmasses or so, and I'm sure this one would be no different, then I have no idea what christmas this time will be like. You see, last time I knew my parents were splitting up. Again. A few weeks ago mom and the kids had moved out, leaving dad alone in the house to call me at 5:30 in the morning. Of course he'd leave, leaving the house to mom and the kids, as usually. Last time I talked to my brother he didn't even know where dad was. As usually. Nor did he know how christmas was going to be. I'm guessing that they'll do the same thing they did three years ago, when the exact same thing happened, and during the same time of the year too, when mom and dad were going to 'have one more proper christmas' and then get divorced after that. (Of course, that didn't actually happen, until things exploded later and dad actually moved out.) So all of them will be at home, 'playing nice for the kids', and everything will be awkward as hell. But then again, my family is the biggest collection of emotional fuckwits there exists, so everything is always awkward as hell anyway, so it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.
So I, for one, am not too disappointed not to be there right now. The main thing I miss is the food. And my youngest brother. Which is probably a bit bad. But oh well. But then again, the others are stuck with it, which makes me think that it's my responsibility to be there too, to try to make it better. I'm the oldest, after all, it's my job to make things a little more bearable for the younger ones. So when mom and dad are fighting, since I've learnt by now to stay out of it, I take the kids and try to distract them. But they're not babies any more, and maybe now it's time for the other ones to step up to the plate. Daníel is only a year younger than I am, after all, and this can be his job for a while. I think I've done my part. In any case, there's nothing I can do. I chose to move to the other side of the world, making it near impossible for me to go home for christmas, only for financial reasons. Maybe on purpose, I don't know.
There are other reasons I'm not at home. I'm simply not strong enough to brave my family. I'd hide in my room, skip meals, break into tears and start hyperventilating at the smallest sign of stress or too-personal issues. Not to mention that considering how much weight I've lost recently my mom would probably ship me off to a hospital. She asked me straight-out if I was anorexic when I was home in august, and I've lost nearly 10 pounds since. I've actually not weighed this little since I was 14 or 15. Even if I have been eating. I look like a fucking skeleton, and my clothes don't fit any more. But oh well.
So la. I'm probably in the best place I could be, considering all this. I'll spend christmas with friends, and friend's family, and the cats. There'll be good food and christmas decorations, and despite people doing it weird over here and have christmas on the 25th instead of the 24th at 6pm, then it'll be okay. More than okay, I hope! I think I've done most of the christmas shopping I need to do, even if I'm afraid cards and more will have to wait until after christmas. The only thing I'm missing right now is all the icelandic christmas music, which I was going to ask people from home to send to me, but thought of too late. But I've been sitting here all morning and watched the christmas tv program from home online. Only now it seems to have stopped working. *bashes* My mom even sent me cookies! So I have authentic mom!cookies to munch on. Even if she sent me the liquorice ones as well, which I've told her many times I can't stand. And she even put raisins in the cornflakes ones, which she should know I've never eaten. But I guess everyone's quirks are hard to keep track of, when you have five kids.
So la, wasn't this a charming little christmas story :P
Merry Christmas everyone! Gleðileg jól!
edit: hee, I even christmassified my layout! :D