Christmas Eve Morning<\/p>\n
Amid the bustle of a waking house\u2026
\nAs if turning the lever of a strong time machine with my thoughts, I bounce thirty years back.
\nTo my childhood home.
\nThe same\u2026 Christmas Eve morning.<\/p>\n
From the small apartment kitchen, I\u2019m woken by the concert of sizzling pans and clattering pot lids.
\nThe air is permeated with the scent of food, prepared by Mom, quickly dispelling sleep.
\nStill lying in warm bedding, I let my gaze wander over the garland stretched across the room.
\nFrom the lamp to the bookshelf, from the bookshelf to the curtain rod.
\nNo one else.
\nIt\u2019s me, who, for weeks\u2026 had been making it.<\/p>\n
Carefully cutting pieces of colored paper into strips, threading them into circular rings, and matching colors to create a long chain of connected rings.
\nSometimes it would break, and the whole beautiful room installation would be ruined.
\nThen I\u2019d glue it back together again.
\nBut on Christmas Eve morning, it hung neatly, straightened out, swinging gently with my childish thoughts.<\/p>\n
Pulling the curtain aside, I press my nose against the cold apartment window.
\nI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s only my heart that wants to remember so vividly, but in my childhood, Christmas mornings were always snowy.
\nOr perhaps memory painted them that way, thanks to the white paper snowflakes stuck on the window?
\nThrough their various cut-out shapes, I would gaze at the winter world.<\/p>\n
Slipping quietly from the room, Mom greets me.
\nShe spends the entire day in the kitchen without sitting down.
\nShe lays silvery herring on plates.
\nArmed with huge mittens, she pulls from the hot oven a massive tray of yeasty, puffy \u201c\u0160li\u017eikai\u201d buns.
\nDuring dinner, with eyes tightly shut, we would scoop handfuls from the huge bowl, letting the fortune decide\u2014would we have an even number of buns, signaling paired years ahead?<\/p>\n
Balancing on the kitchen stool, I scoop some still-warm K\u016b\u010diukai into my childish fists and count them on the table.
\nI\u2019m practicing.
\nTo make them EVEN.<\/p>\n
The coffee grinder whirs.
\nBut this time, it\u2019s not coffee beans spinning inside, but poppy seeds that will soon become the filling for the \u0160ALTANOSIAI\u2014baked only once a year.<\/p>\n
Soon the day rolls into the afternoon\u2026
\nAnd our family prepares to visit the Grandparents.
\nPlates of food we\u2019ve made all day are carefully packed into newspaper sheets.
\nAnd having packed our cat (because no one may be left alone that night) into Dad\u2019s big leather bag, we set off to join the Christmas Eve table.<\/p>\n
The journey is long.
\nOr maybe just short little legs?
\nOur noses and cheeks sting from the cold, wrapped tightly in scarves.<\/p>\n
At the Grandparents\u2019 house, the smells are just as strong.
\nIn the first room, a long table is spread, carefully covered with a \u201cbegged-for\u201d white tablecloth, from under whose edges peeks a handful of straw.
\nOne room in the Grandparents\u2019 house was always kept locked.
\n\u201cWe ventilate it,\u201d Grandpa would smile, so Santa Claus, visiting for Christmas, wouldn\u2019t overheat.<\/p>\n
Oh, how curious it was to poke even the tip of a nose into that cool, ventilated room!
\nWhere, under the large fir branches, gifts would magically \u201cland\u201d after the Christmas Eve dinner.
\nLet me emphasize: M A G I C A L L Y.
\nBecause no matter how many times we tried to peek through the keyhole before dinner, it always ended in a deep, childish sigh:
\n\u201cNothing\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
But after eating\u2014some kind of miracle happened!
\nAnd with a flick of the light switch by an adult hand, unreachable to us children, gifts would appear beneath the heavily decorated green branches, adorned with old-fashioned ornaments!<\/p>\n
With our bellies full and arms hugging the gifts we\u2019d just received, our family would turn back toward home.
\nA small apartment on the other side of town.
\nUsually, we walked.
\nThrough the emptied streets of Panev\u0117\u017eys.<\/p>\n
And though the way wasn\u2019t very short, little legs carried us in quickened steps\u2026
\nBecause in those locked houses, under the green Christmas tree\u2026 another miracle had to have happened.<\/p>\n
In my childish mind, I never thought about where Christmas Eve miracles came from.
\nPerhaps that\u2019s why they remain etched in memory as real miracles.<\/p>\n
Look around.
\nToday, many shining eyes are scurrying nearby, waiting for a MIRACLE.
\nOne wants to believe in it\u2014even after a third of a century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-17654","istorija","type-istorija","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istorija\/17654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istorija"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/istorija"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/viktorijos.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}