"Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O'er the fields we go
Laughing all the way
Bells on bobtails ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight" -Jingle Bells Source
Hmmm what does Christmas mean?... It means a drinking big hot chocolate cup with marshmellos in front of a dancing fire. Little snowflakes being accumulated on the roofs of homes and sidewalks, making it hard to walk through the neighborhoods. Twinkling lights, white, red, green illuminate houses that started being decorated months before December the 25th arrived.
If only all of us in the world could experience that! This is what dreams are made of, mostly when we are kids. We dream of writings letters to Santa Claus with big lists of gifts, praying that we don’t get coal; of REALLY decorating a big tree (a real one, not a plastic one), even with DIY thingies. Of baking gingerbread cookies and eating candy canes that, for some reason, we think are sweet but in reality, they are peppermint. This, and more are some of the habits that are not common in every part of the world, like for example, the countries that spend the holidays living in a 40ºC hell, in which we can cook an egg on the pavement (believe me, we’ve tried and succeeded).
Our Christmases are spent inside, but not because of the terrible cold and white snow, but for the scorching hot that cannot be tolerated. ¡Air conditioning is our best choice for a good holiday! Don’t even mention turning the oven on to bake cookies, forget about that and drink an ice cold drink beside the pool. If we feel like decorating a tree, we sweat even trying to find that little plastic thingy that we reutilize every Christmas, because ¡we ain’t gonna buy a real one!
But these things are not the most common, and not everybody can even began to fathom any December holidays without the whiteness, the coldness and the sweetness. In spite of everything, you have not lived until you spend a good party besides a river with all your friends, the coolers filled with ice cold drinks to enjoy an unforgettable night that can last until 6 am, or even more.
Happy holidays to everyone that spends them under a ceiling fan, with the air conditioning on, and big bright smiles that carry Christmas with the sentiment, but not the stereotypical holiday ;)