A different Christmas day

We started the Christmas day taking a bus to a town where an acquaintance of us had invited us to spend some days with his family. After travelling for some hours in an uncomfortable bus, finally we reached his place. It was a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, with some cows, monkeys and camels wandering on the streets. We thought that the family would welcome us greatly and we would have a nice Christmas day together. But when we called to say we had already arrived, we had a surprise because nobody was at home and they wouldn’t come back until the next week. After some minutes being bewildered we decided to come back to the same city where we were coming from. While we were waiting for the bus, next to the dusty road, we had our lonely and austere Christmas meal: some bread, some cheese and some water.

In the afternoon we arrived to the city again. Then we decided to hitch-hike just to arrive soon to the hotel and have a rest. A biker offered kindly to give us a lift and leave us near the place where we were going. But when we realised, we were leaving the city in the opposite way of our place. We asked him to stop and we got off. We didn’t understand where we were going to nor what intentions the biker had. We couldn’t understand each other because he didn’t speak English at all. The fact is that we were in the farthest end of the city and we had a long way to come back to the hotel. We finally reached the hotel late in the evening and we were exhausted. The workers of the hotel told us that the manager was having a Christmas party and he was waiting for us. We decided to join them for some minutes just to see what they were doing. The party couldn’t be less apathetic and sad. The manager and three friends of him were drinking whisky around a table. They invited us to join them and drink with them and this was all the party. Maybe they were already “enjoying” the party for some hours since they seemed a bit drunk. One of the friends tried to walk some steps without too much balance and another of them tried to kiss us several times telling “Oh, I love Spain”. The manager just drank whisky silently.

I never liked Christmas holidays too much with so much consumerism and the compulsory idea of meeting family and being happy and singing carols. I don’t like that the social pressure may decide whom you should spend these days nor what you should eat nor what you should give as a present. I always have preferred an alternative or different Christmas holidays. But today, in the inner of my soul, I think I would have chosen a conventional Christmas day.