It’s half three in the afternoon, and the night is falling already. There are lights everywhere, sparkling in the dark like little angels, blue, white, red, shiny dancing stars. It’s Christmas time, and most people feel happier for no apparent reason. Yet I can understand why they do, in fact I do feel happier, too. It’s the joy of the families coming together, of friends who will see each other again maybe after a long time, or simply who will get a chance of spending together a little longer than in everyday life.
At Christmas every place gets a little magical, but in London this is even more so. Every neighborhood, every corner of the city is transformed almost in a new world, and walking around here is like finding oneself somewhere between a dream and a fairy tale, somewhere just a tiny bit different from those because perhaps of all the people populating it, or indeed the intense traffic that in a place like this hardly ever stops.
This just above is Covent Garden. This year everything’s gone quite big here, opulent, maybe to express the hope that this time of crisis is actually not as bad as we are told it is.
At any rate, what I see when I wander around this district, or elsewhere in the West End, but almost in any other part of London really, is the happiness of giving on people’s faces in this special atmosphere: they’re looking for presents to give to their dear ones and, as they walk, listening to the many choirs which you’ll see singing carols and collecting money for charity every half a mile.
Of course you might argue that Christmas is just some other form of business after all. And it’s hard to deny that that is quite true, at least to a certain extent. But how could one condemn all the smiling faces it brings us, children or elderly, all the warm hearts, the hope, the cheer?
I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m ready to do that. I love Christmas. And I do love Advent time and its own special magic; over here, in London, I do even more.
Tetxts by Laura ”Croft” Vivio
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