Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is when the Danish side of the family celebrate Christmas. When I was a kid these family gatherings were pretty big, especially for a little kid, and very exciting, as it was when I got the best presents, the ones from your mum and dad. As a result Christmas Day was pretty boring. None of my friends were allowed out, as they were having their Christmases, and I was done with mine.

Anna and I make sure we still have our families get together on Christmas Eve, and we still open a few presents but the main emphasis of Christmas is no longer on Christmas Eve. And with Dad no longer around it is ever more the case.

This year we hosted Christmas Eve. It would be a change for Anna, we might not miss Dad so much and besides it was definitely our turn. The highlight of the evening was getting some of Dad's old 35 mm slides out. We got his old screen up, and the projector, it must be 40 years old at least, was still working. My Dad hadn't got the whole thing set up since we were kids so it was a little like going in back in time. We saw lots of old favourites, and quite a few pictures we had never seen before, like the pictures of us both as tiny babies.

Unfortunately, I was so engrossed in looking at my Dad's pictures, I didn't take any of my own.