This will be our 6th Christmas in Ireland. But every year, when we set up our tree and the decorations go up, my mind wanders back to that very first Christmas.
Like so many of you, we also had that crazy back and forth between excitement, joy, sadness, and missing everyone else.
Landing in December
When we got off the plane, on the 1st of December 2015, we stepped into the middle of a storm.
(Well, “got off.” We are brave, not stupid. Getting on the plane was never an option.)
We hit the ground running. Looking back now, I realise the chaos of it all helped to take the focus off the fact that this would be our first Christmas without the family we had always had around us. We knew no one. We had no idea how much deposit we would need for everything, or when my husband would find work. Every time we looked at a price tag, we were converting from euros into rands. Even the cheapest gifts felt expensive.
We were fortunate to find a week-by-week rental very soon after we arrived. But it was tiiii-nyyy.
Still, we decided our children would have the best Christmas ever. It was important that they did not feel our sadness at missing everyone back home.
The tree and the empty suitcases
We bought a small tree and, in retrospect, decorated it very sparingly. We bought the gifts and hid them in the empty suitcases.
It took us no time at all to be overwhelmed by the beauty of Christmas in Ireland. Even today, I still have to laugh when I see all the garden decorations, the houses lit up from corner to corner, the trees outside the shops, the streets dressed to the max.
It is magical. You cannot help but get swept up in it. Christmas here is a big deal.
The line we still say
We probably still say this far too often:
“I wonder how long those lights would be up in SA before they were stolen.”
The fact that nobody does steal them has slowly, steadily become reality. We now have decorations outside our own home. No one steals them.
But even the magic was tinged with an intense missing of the traditions and people we had known all our lives.
What you give up when you leave
One of the things you become very aware of when you leave South Africa is everything you are going to miss out on. The big family feasts. The people around the table. Who is making the turkey. Who brings the pudding.
There are things about Christmas in South Africa that are simply not going to happen here.
No one will be getting sunburnt. The odds are stacked against any possibility of a braai in the lapa on Christmas Eve.
The small things that become traditions
But every year, starting with that first Christmas, you begin doing little things that slowly become new traditions.
We light a tea candle for each person we wish was with us. One candle, one name, every year.
It is one of many small things. When our children grow up, it will be something they look back on as part of home. Because this is their home. They do not know any different. They were too small when we left.
I say it often: I am glad we left when they were small. They will never know what this homesick feels like.
I still cry every year I light those candles. I still believe that everything in life comes at a cost, and this is absolutely a tax that is charged every year to our happiness here.
The year the stove broke
Our first Christmas, the stove broke on Christmas Eve. We lived an hour from the nearest town and had no car.
We ended up eating microwave pizza.
I still smile at that memory when I look at the amount of meat already filling up the freezer in preparation for this Christmas.
My in-laws arrived a couple of months after us. Our children have had cousins as part of their lives here from early on. But this Christmas is even more special.
My mother and father-in-law arrived this morning to make Ireland their new home, with our last nephew safely with them and his parents following soon after.
Our Christmas will be filled with a full house. Our children will have a Grandma and a Granddad and all their cousins with them. I cannot wait for the crazy and the busy that will come on that day.
This year, I will light those candles and have my mother-in-law take hers off the mantle herself.
A message for those spending their first Christmas here
For each of you who will spend your first Christmas in Ireland missing your family back in South Africa, remember this.
When we made the decision to come all those years ago, we anticipated being by ourselves for the rest of time. Unless someone visited. Unless we went back.
But bit by bit, while we were too scared to pray for it, one by one, our family came.
This year we will have a full house. And next year, my husband’s last brother and my mother will be calling Ireland home too, and the kitchen will be even fuller.
We did not dare dream of it. But it is absolutely a dream come true.
We thought we would be alone, loving the possibility of snow and Christmas lights. But meantime, we just needed to come first, so we could show them the way to follow.
Take it in
This is your journey.
The lights may sparkle in your eyes.
And Robin will bring you good luck.
Also read: The Shocking Truth: Our SA Normal Was Never Normal
