Our little life Miracles.
It lasted for quite long as for these two weeks of school vacations.
Christmas miracle came to us slowly, calmly, unexpectedly.
It came with no rush and no need of chaotic clean up at home. With no pointless fights or too much stress as it may seam sometimes to be usual before big events. It came with care of people around us, of people from our organisation’s team and friends greeting us and leting us to great every one of them with our little hand made gifts from me and Alma. It came with me recalling skill of how to draw Christmas cards. It came with Alma’s room being covered with papers and greatest Italian sweets while kitchen was occupied by me and sweet Christmas trees from cookies with edible beads. It came with childish joy in our eyes when me and Alma were decorating little gingerbread houses with sugar icing and lots of candies and sweets to look just like the little houses from the old tales about Cities of Sweets or just like the ones from the Nutkracker. Christmas to our little flat came with a little tilted Christams tree which later was decorated with decorations from hay - cute angels and little stars and what seems with already shining little suns. I have seen our little Christmas miracle with light of a candles in the Advent wreath on our kitchen table when we were slowly getting ready for the dinner. There came a great discovering that what for me is White salad the same thing for Czecks is Potato salad while for Italians and Spanish it is a Russian salad. What a joy was for me to see Alma making it as I never used to like it except this time as I knew it would remind me of home but I simply did not know how to make it… It was a pure joy for me to watch Alma making greatest miracles of the kitchen with Spanish tortilla, cheese cups, pastries, salads and even home made sushi (for the first time in both of our lives)! It was incredible to have a mix of traditions and tastes for such special evening. And my heart was dancing even more with a fact having a package from home with some lithuanian must things for me for Christmas Eve including Christams wafers (“kalėdaitis” in Lithuanian), some black bread with sunflowers and little pastries called “Kūčiukai” which I got both from home and from trying to make them myself for the first time. We were sitting and smiling and eating slowly while sharing our traditions, childhood memories and ideas. We were drinking hot Chocolate and baking some marshamellows, imagining our stove being a bonfire. We were unpacking some presents and then both of us had long calls with our loveones far from us. It was truly unique, I must say, as through the longing and a little bit of sadness we still managed to enjoy and cheer each other up with jokes and oh… Christmas music. All the time we were listening to Christmas carols a bit in Lithuanian, a bit in Italian, some in English and a lot in Czech what was a pure joy for us as music lovers.
The next day was no less incredible and even more magical as we have been honored with a great company in a farm a bit away from home. Ježíšek wisited us even there with little homemade presents from wood and clay and with a greatest gift - lots of music. We were singing, we were chatting, we were cooking all together and enjoying. We even had a lovely tea ceremony under the Christmas tree! Can You imagine? I would never thing of an idea of having a Christmas tree hanging from the ceilings and then offering everyone to sit under it like a precious gifts for each other drinking tea and chatting to share experiences and traditions. We were even singing one lithuanian song and in the end it came out to be a song with full band of different drums and trumpet and hand claps and me singing into megaphone. It was truly crazy and magical and sounded, I must say, as a pure heaven for me while others tried to pronounce lithuanian words right. I was deeply touched hearing my language or at elast something like it from amazing people around me.
Then we had a spontanious hike to Klič through snow and ice, and a lovely slide down it on our tummies or butts. We hade some tea and meditation, some real intense discussions with friends that we have just newly made. We had a great card games evening playing Dixit and I love these card for how creative it can show us being and for how beautiful cards are. We had some lovely walks in sunshine, drinking sunlight like a sweet nectar, near the lake, through the forest, through rocks and fields. One day I even wanted to make myself a little longer walk instead of bus coming back home by foot. It was kind of a great experience to end up this year. As a matter of fact I miscounted time and distance and most of that time I had to go already in darkness starting with a long walk through the forest. It was like a crazy test from me to myself to check how brave I can be and how patience to myself. It was once again magical as filled with indescribable colourful sunset and bright moon through the clouds leading my way most of the time. And the ending, when I was already just a few km from our flat, it simply took my breath with a clear indigo sky filled with little stars. Such moments simply feel like recharging not only for my body but also fo rmy mind. It comes as a reminder to appreciate little things of everything what is all around me.
We did not even noticed and it was already a last day of the year. We started with some new experiences of meditation, with some walk near Novy Bor and discussion about Zen and happiness in that moment’s sunshine instead of so long no seen snow. It was pretty cool.
Then not even in the evening we found another great discovery of the year - fireworks from 5:30 PM. FROM 5:30 PM CAN YOU IMAGINE?! It is not even so called evening yet at such time. It was unbelievable both for me and for Alma and we even started question maybe our time being wrong, maybe it is already indeed a midnight or have we missed some kidn of important information from the locals and so on?! It was kind of funny to run to one side windows and then to other side to try to catch a light in the sky as there were so many of them already until something like 9 in the evening. We truly thought it is going to be over for this years celebrations as noone was allowed to go outside because of the restrictions, as we knew… well, guess what, we were so wrong as around the midnight we got even more of the fireworks everywhere and all the time! I think in sum up of my whole life together I have never seen so many fireworks and this was both fascinating and terrifying, I must say. It was a realy unique greeting of a new year, with a lot of calls and messages, but most important with music in my hands, which was a greates joy.
The next few days - few first days of a 2021 was nothing much special, I believe, but was still great and in my current state quite unusual, if You let me call it so. I enjoyed some great movies, that I for long wanted to see again or have just founded out about. I never thought I would ever recommend some kind of a movie to anyone but I was deeple touched by the Disney animation movie called “Soul”. What a great start of the year, I think, is to find out that sometimes all we search in life is already in our hands and we simply do not notice that. Same as the fish from the story that searched for ocean and did not believed that the water, in which it was already, was the one it was searching for so long…
Happy New Year everyone.
Best wishes, hugs and kisses and may these year of Yours will be filled with love
Aušra
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