Runway: the Finnair blog

It began in August. Christmas planning. What if this year we travelled somewhere for Christmas? What is it that’s so special about Christmas? You know, we eat good food all year round, and we are fairly regular shoppers, too. I laid the thought to rest.

In October the idea was stirred once again, spiced with the word “perhaps”.

In November the dish was ready. Christmas lights began to appear around the town and “perhaps” changed into the word “no” as the first Christmas songs began to play.

At the beginning of December the children arranged a Christmas film day at home. In dreamy silence they enjoyed, amongst other things, the Christmassy mood of “Home Alone”. It was a perfect sight: lights, a decorated tree, red, green, gold, silver and snow gleamed in the movie in just the right way. If a sound could describe them, that sound would have been Aaaah!

I, however, uttered a long, deep sigh. And then another! We were once again heading full speed towards our traditional Christmas: our family traditions, developed over the years.

I only buy a few presents – until I see airports and aircraft filled with people carrying beautifully wrapped presents. Inferring from their self-confident strides and joyful bag swinging that they have bought excellent gifts, my own choices languishing in the cupboard seem insignificant. I therefore decide to buy a few more myself. Yet another thing that’s become a tradition.

Preparations advance and the tension mounts. Two days before Christmas we decorate the tree and roast the ham. And as always we notice with dismay that we forgot to buy new lights for the tree. Its looks suffer slightly when the broken third of the lights are hidden against the wall. On the other hand, the children’s hand-made decorations have amassed to the extent that the working part of the light series doesn’t really do them justice.

The aroma of ham fills the home. It is the smell of Christmas, which you don’t get from a plastic tree. The tree, moreover, doesn’t generate problem waste, which is precisely the dilemma posed by fat that dripped out of ham. What to do with it? Scared of blocking up the pipes, father performs the disposal task. The neighbours may believe there are gnomes when they see him creeping into the adjacent forest, which is surely flourishing from the impact of its annual lubrication.

We sing a few Christmas songs. Anything really. Not, regrettably, just the ones that best suit our vocal ranges. The day ends in a dispute over the rules of a board game. Classic. Both the dispute and the board game.

Christmas Eve is hustle and bustle, and full of yet more family traditions, enhancing the mood. The tension is maintained until the evening. Sometimes more disputes arise, sometimes less. We eat more. We eat too much. We complain that we have eaten too much. We are happy and surprised to receive our annual gift of new pyjamas. At no stage of the evening do the children sit in a row on the sofa wearing red velvet dresses and ribbons in their hair. But that’s because two of them are boys. They also don’t stand in ascending height order to sing for Santa, because the two eldest are already reached full age. But they are still children to us and hopefully they’ll remain children at heart. That’s another tradition we hope to maintain.

On Boxing Day we take the decorations off the tree. I pack those broken lights carefully away for safekeeping. The return to everyday life is very welcome. On the radio they sing: “I wish it would be Christmas every day.” But realistically I know this can’t be so. The romantic in me awakens, however, with the thought: “I wish we could all be a bit more childlike and spread goodwill throughout the year.”

In conclusion I venture, in the best tradition, to wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Helena Kaartinen