Witches
Many moons ago, the husband gifted me a handmade Christmas “angel” from a local market. I am reluctant to use the word angel because to me she never was one. From the moment he handed her to me, she became Stevie Nicks. The witchiest of witches. The only thing missing was a little top-hat, so the husband fashioned her one out of paper, and we gave her the seat-of-honour on top of our tree. Little did he know that, with this gift, he would pay witness to a new Christmas tradition – nay, a very own holiday – unfolding. During a season – and within a society, a world – that still celebrates bearded old white men as the bringers of peace and riches, I felt warm and jollily empowered by removing this seasonal narrative and celebrating, instead, the real makers of magic and memories: women.
For most men and children, the Christmas season begins once the first plate of homemade plätzchen¹ lands on the table and the house is aglow with fairy-lights and decorated with all that glitters. It reaches its peak when a perfectly planned and lovingly prepared meal is served on a table laid with coordinated colour palettes and trimmings to ensure the ultimate platform (or battleground) from which to kick off the festivities (or passive-aggressive commentaries to fuel drunken fights in the kitchen later on); when everyone is gathered around the tree opening carefully selected presents that magically appeared under it that morning, beautifully wrapped. For women, the season opens pretty much the moment the clock strikes midnight on Hallow’s Eve – that is if their family lives locally. If they happen to be the event-manager for a family that has spread its roots all across the globe, they’re matching calendars and comparing cheap airlines for the best prices while sitting at the pool at the beginning of their summer holiday.
On the English side of my family, prepping the turkey Christmas dinner would start two days ahead of the feast, with my mom soaking the bird in a bucket full of seasonal goodies, Nigella style. On the actual day, the kitchen would be filled with three generations of women – my mom, my grandma and her sister, and my Nana – peeling potatoes, chopping beans and carrots and dousing them (and themselves) in Sherry. The German side of my family is more about baking and, each year, it is an absolute highlight when a package arrives containing a tin of spritzgebäck² and other specialties made by my aunt, cousin and tita abuela. My dad loves thinking back to when he was a kid, and my grandmother and her sisters would spend days with every surface of the kitchen occupied by cookies, making batches of up to 200 a day to fill into tins and give away to friends and family. But the food, such an essential in the way we, as women, nurture our families, is such a small part of it all in the grand scheme of things.
It’s all the tiny little details that go into not just making this one day a year, but a childhood, an adolescence, a lifetime one filled with magic, warmth and memories. During this season, it might be talking everyone into the cringe-worthy holiday photos no one wants to take in the moment, but everyone enjoys laughing at ten Christmases down the line; attending holiday events that husbands tag along on, dragging their feet only to, ultimately, delight in their kid’s eyes sparkling brighter than any of the twinkly lights illuminating December; it’s booking and packing for the holidays once the extended family’s schedules have been coordinated; it’s ensuring little dreams come true and a longing for coziness and geborgenheit³ is tended to. And that’s just winter. This devotion, though, extends across all seasons and holidays and milestones. Which is why I believe, winter should be ours. I don’t really understand the concept of “Hot Girl Summer”. But I am all for Wise Women Winter and using the long nights to wind down and reflect.
It's a time to recuperate from an autumn of kindergarten-cooties and a summer of lugging everything up and down to the pool or the beach every day in 40°C heat when all you really want is to swing yourself into a sweet siesta in the hammock; from the early new year and springtime and organizing your work schedule around carnival parties (and the making of the costumes) and Easter Egg Hunts (and the mapping thereof). When that last present is wrapped, the last Christmas-Do-WhatsApp group has muted, and the last dose of cough syrup has been doled out to whichever member of the family was last to catch the bug, Mama’s gonna make an effort to stay awake for long enough to regain the ability to relax into relaxing, and think of all those women who have done this before her, those who do it every day, and those who are no longer around to do it. Of those who wish to but can’t or won’t. Of the women who pour their time and their soul into literary, musical, artistic creations instead (or additionally), the ones I will delight in when I’m finally sat, right there, in my reading nook, cradled by my €5 thrift-store armchair, the way I cradle others all year round.
And so, our tree is not decorated with the faces of bearded old white men, but stands tall and proud, colourful, strong and radiant with the faces of those who truly deserve to be honoured and put on a pedestal at this time of year: the matriarchy, on which everything rests. The women from which the greatest gifts of life are born: children, homes, art and truth. In this house we celebrate our witches. Por que son lo más⁴.
Merry Witchmas, to you all!
plätzchen = Christmas cookies
spritzgebäck = shortbread cookies
geborgenheit = safety
Por que son lo más = because they are everything
