Glittering white globes hang above Oxford Street like they're suspended from the invisible stars. Light pulses from inside shops and from the twinkling decorations on the storefronts. In the fading daylight the vicious press of shoppers glows. It's only four o'clock but darkness has almost fallen. The population of London is frantic. This is the two nights before Christmas, and I'll be damned if every person in the city isn't stirring, right here on Oxford Street.
There's a short time between when the last of the golden leaves fall and when the festive season begins. The brief glum slump only makes the lights brighter when they're strung. Christmas transforms London. The naked trees are covered with twinkling coats. People in the streets begin to ditch the London black-on-black-on-grey look for festive beanies and other excellent themed knitwear. Markets grow in the streets. Thousands of Santas chuckle their way through department store December. Ice skating rinks shine like polished metal. Despite the conspicuous lack of wildly white weather I'd been assured was on its way this year, this Christmas was different to any I've known.
Every year I fetch my loosest, most sleeveless dress for Christmas day. We sit outside wherever we are and eat salads and cold meats. After lunch last year I took a nap under a tree in my brother's hammock. So I guess the cold doesn't feel like Christmas, to me. But at the same time it's so familiar. I've been drenched with images of Christmas from the northern hemisphere, and in a strange way the scarfed, hurrying crowds almost felt more real than the sweaty, lazy day I've grown up with. We wanted to make it a chilly Christmas, intentionally different.
Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation, and I think this year was one of those times. We were supposed to be in Germany, frolicking in the snowfall, but work didn't give us our time off. Then we were supposed to be volunteering, but the public transport stops on Christmas and we weren't near a center. Then we were supposed to sit in our own living room and just eat ourselves silly, but we don't have a living room. And to be honest we didn't really have a plan D. Poor sooks.
On Christmas eve we packed our bags and got on the tube. Some kind friends helped us disguise our homelessness as 'house-sitting' by going on holiday and leaving us the keys. That night, in need of cheer, we doubled our cardigans and ventured to Hampstead in search of a warm pub. The Garden Gate boasts a beautiful beer garden, quite solidly deserted, as I suspect it is for much of winter. A lighted tree shimmered in the window below the swinging sign, like in the windows of every pub on every street corner in London. There were vats on the counter of hot mulled cider and wine. Ella and I spent the evening discovering nice things, like we aren't really sad to be away from home, on a grand and un-glamorous adventure, and that we've spent five months in each other's company and still have plenty to laugh about. It wasn't so bad, really.
We made the day different. We may be homeless, but we still managed the presents, and we had a tree. I baked gingerbread. We skyped our families in the morning as they were finishing their dinner, then we made our lunch. I drank wine in the kitchen because I was afraid I'd spill it on the carpet. The same friends who had so patiently hosted us for two months called us to say their tandem bicycle trip had gone slightly awry (copious amounts of tape later, they made it home). They were just in time for lunch. I managed to totally eschew the true meaning of Christmas and win monopoly in power-crazed house-buying frenzy. A solid alternative version of Christmas day.
I missed out on my white Christmas. But there's always hope for a white Australia Day.
Happy Christmas folks.
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