Ghosts of Christmas Past and Ebanana Scrooge

Yesterday, Christmas Day, I went on Facebook.  Facebook has a "memories" feature that brings back posts from the same date in previous years. You then have the choice of sharing it (or not) with others.

Back when I started on Facebook, I did a lot more personal posting, so I wasn't surprised when a post from December 25, 2011 presented itself.

Ten years ago yesterday, we went down to visit my mother in law (since deceased), as part of a holiday tradition.   We then drove about 30 miles to a cousin's house, who hosted Christmas every year.  The Facebook post consisted of some pictures of that gathering.  It wasn't that big, which suited me just fine.

Memories.  Ghosts of Christmas past.  The first photo Facebook presented was of two relatives.  Both have since passed on.  In fact, of this small gathering, three of the participants are no longer with us.  It's a fact of life, that nothing is forever, that sometimes you have to build new traditions.

Since then, we have built some new memories and started some new traditions.  One of our newer traditions is something a little strange.

In our area, there is a supermarket chain called Aldi, which is headquartered in Germany.  They have stores in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, China, the Netherlands, and Australia. Last year, celebrating Christmas all by ourselves, we decided to entertain ourselves by finding ads in the English speaking countries.  We concentrated on England, Ireland and Scotland.

What an education!  We discovered the Scottish celebration of the New Year, Hogmanay.  We marveled at all the types of gin available in England.  We drooled over (sorry, vegetarian and vegan readers) turkey crown roast and three fish roast.  

So this year, we did it again.  This time, we learned about Irn-Bru, the "other" national drink of Scotland.  We wondered if haggis tasted good.  We learned more about Boxing Day.  Best of all,  we listened to an Aldi ad takeoff on A Christmas Carol. 

It's fun, seeing how people in other countries live.

We can say, "when this pandemic is over...." but will we?  I've never been overseas, although spouse and I got passports in 2019 because we were finally going to "do it".

Let's hope that 2022 is the year we can finally keep that promise to ourselves.  A country that can produce a video like the one above deserves a good visit.

Perhaps we can start a new tradition.