It was a Grinch-like Christmas...

No Tree, no lights, no stockings, no presents, and indeed no roast beast.

25.Dec.2019

There was that year when we were cold and chilled but together - Pooky, Tyger and I, Christmas of 2006. Pooky had brought along some movies and one of them happened to be the Muppet Christmas Carol - arguably the best Christmas film ever made. We watched it on my little laptop screen, ate some roll-type things that we had thrown together with ready-made chapatis and sausages, and there was the warmth of togetherness that we had missed so much.

Pooky likes creating “family traditions”. We have a Sushi Tradition for Diwali. She created a tradition of us being together on Christmas Day every year, watching the film together, and eating roast chicken and apple pie both of which we made ourselves. It was a beautiful tradition and we kept it up for several years. Even the year that she lived away from home down in Gurgaon. She went to so much trouble decorating the Christmas tree and buying little presents for us. That year she gifted me a copy of The God Delusion - paid for by the money that she was earning teaching music at One World College of M. 

She wrote this enchanting inscription in the book.

I had made our “family” chicken roast and strawberries and cream - just as well, because after promising a feast, she had ended up only organising rice. Those were the days before she took to cooking in a major way. Now she is the one who does the cooking, or would do the cooking if we were together, keeping up the traditions.

I think the Grinch really did steal Christmas this year. When I asked them if they wanted to put up the tree, they looked reluctant to exert themselves. Of course there weren’t any gifts to put under the tree either because no one had gone shopping or even found out what anyone else might want for Christmas. Finally, I wasn’t going to be there for Christmas as I was to be at Green Park with my father. Somehow, this year, Christmas did not come, much like it did not come years ago, before the landmark 2006 day when the three of us got together and promised to spend the day together every year if we were in the same city.

We were in the same city this year, and yet we were not together. We did not watch the Muppet Christmas Carol and we did not bake a pie and we did not make chicken roast. I really don’t know why. It would not have been so difficult to organise but somehow none of us seemed to want to do anything together. 

We let the Grinch steal our Christmas.