For many, especially those who have left childhood behind, Christmas is no longer just a date on the calendar or a simple holiday, but a territory of memory: a mixture of smells, small gestures and seemingly insignificant objects that refuse to grow old.
At the invitation of “Weekend Adevărul”, Svetlana Cârstean, Irina Margareta Nistor, Mădălina Pavăl, Liviu Teodorescu, Holy Molly and IRAIDA returned, for a few moments, to the winters of their childhood – to the eagerly awaited Christmas, to family meals, to the traditions discovered and still preserved. We also asked them to tell us about an object preserved from those years: an old, strange or fragile ornament that has survived time and modernization, carrying with it an intimate story. Their answers talk about how memory sometimes clings to a simple Christmas tree toy or a piece of tinsel, and how childhood Christmas lives on.
Svetlana Cârstean, writer: “The water lilies have ended, the soft-skinned globes have broken. But the books have endured the most”
I’ve moved many times throughout my life and long distances, so almost all childhood items gradually became remnants, and then really disappeared altogether. In that big box that we probably all have somewhere in a storage room, in an attic, in a contemporary storage space, and that we open once a year, the Pandora’s box of Christmas, in addition to new tinsel, globes from various eras, from the 90s or 2000 until today, some increasingly unsuccessful, increasingly lighter, eternally ugly, others almost perfect, colored or, on the contrary, transparent, promising a story and magic like a steam, there were always four or five “old” globes, the ones from the 80s. Those thin-skinned orbs that could and did break. Pointed, long as a spindle, or, on the contrary, beautifully rounded, which rotated and shone like real ones in that cold living room where the fir, actually the spruce, was always placed, it shook more easily, it was more ephemeral – I knew conifers from the age of seven – but which had its charm and no one could take it away, no matter what the times were. The times under which people always sit like under the mistletoe of the end of the year. Those globes made the connection between me from the past and the present of the new Christmas, but also between the old world and the one that kept renewing itself by always selling other globes, other firs, other plastics and other decorations. For a long time they even continued to have that peg with which they had been tied at first to be hung in the spruce-tree.
Next to them, in my grown-up Christmas-celebrating box, sat for a long time the much-loved installation that lit up my childhood living room year after year. Not stars, not candles, but nine bright pink, yellow, vernal and purple water lilies. They were beautiful when they were unused, but even more beautiful when the evening came and they started to light up. They rested strangely among the branches full of green needles, still alive until the beginning of January, and all those weeks I slept in the room with the fir tree without unplugging the plant, and my last thoughts before each sleep were each time gliding among the water lilies, sailing on a small, nimble boat, among long round globes, among pear globes and strawberry globes, past the only bag in the tree, with three oranges in it, full of fragrance, among the fireworks and candles, then arriving right in the middle of the dream.
Gone are the water lilies, broken are the soft, thin-skinned globes that I managed to save in my ever-departing human baggage. But the books I carried from my home library withstood the most, and among them, my books in French. I bought them from the antique shop in the center of Botoșani, the first antique shop in my life, where I learned a different smell of books than in the bookstore, I discovered other types of paper, fonts, illustrations. I went there often, I stayed for hours, everything was unpredictable, the shelves were not repeated, the books were unique, in a single copy, the small, fragrant, French books, the pocket books, seemed without number. And almost every time, I would pick a book that I would put away as it came. I asked the lady who owned the antique store to keep it for me. For months. On December 24, every time, under the tree, under the fireworks, oranges, under the globe-pear and globe-strawberry, under the countless needles of the spruce, I found a big package with a bow. All the books in French I’d been craving for over a year, maybe Maupassant, maybe a Hugo, maybe the first volume of A la recherche…, maybe Le Grand Meaulnes. I imagined my father entering the antique shop in the center, talking to Marina, as if that was her name, or maybe not, who put the stack of books in his arms. Then they laughed with each other, she told him how I used to come to the antique store, how I keep my nose in all kinds of books, how she can’t get away from me. Then on Christmas Eve, I feigned surprise, he feigned innocence, and so on for years, by the light of the water lilies that shone like stars until morning. Those books have endured to this day. And the globes from that time are my madeleine, one of them, I can feel their shape in my memory, I can see their way of shining, of gliding on the Persian carpet in the living room, causing in me the fear of losing them, they remain the most beautiful globes.
Irina Margareta Nistor, film critic: “An angel from 50 years ago, from Paris, that my mother brought me”
Christmas tree decorations with history, a first color tinsel from Spain (when we didn’t even have color TV), an angel from 50 years ago, from Paris, which my mother brought me, when she was left with a scholarship, that I had remained a guarantee in the country, or a more recent sled, from the first edition of the Psychoanalysis and Film Festival, 13 years ago, with the thought of Rosebud, the mystery from “The Citizen Kane” by the brilliant Orson Welles.
All this makes me miss my mother and quality cinema – and with a bit of color, even if the greatest films are black and white.
Liviu Teodorescu, artist: “I gave up the glass globes, but I kept the candies”
I remember that on Christmas night I had a lot of dreams. I was extremely excited at the thought of presents under the tree – at our house it was like that, Santa came every year. Sometimes I dreamed that I got what I wanted, other times that I got the exact opposite, in those dreams I think all my impatience and enthusiasm poured out.
Christmas remains the most beautiful holiday, and now I relive it just as intensely from the position of a parent. When I was little, my family used to put glass globes on the tree, they were very popular at the time. And they put candy. Today, I couldn’t put glass globes because I have a little girl and accidents are possible, but I kept the candy habit.
Holy Molly, artist: “I wasn’t attached to things, I was attached to Christmas food”
For me, Christmas has always meant caroling. But not on the stairs of the building, but in the country, among the snow slush, from gate to gate, at 6 in the morning (yes, we have carols from the morning), scruffy and happy. The smell of pretzels, the bags we carried (we used to sing on the pretzels, and the one who collected the most pretzels was the winner), the smell of tangerines or brandy with oranges that the adults served to warm themselves, the streets full of children and snow – everything is still very vivid in my memory.
I wasn’t attached to the Christmas items, but I was attached to the Christmas food. In my family, caltaboş is a delicacy, served with soaked pretzels, sarmales, boeuf salad. Probably for me this is the form of love and connection with my family, my comfort food.
Mădălina Pavăl, artist: “The bell was not just an accessory, but a sign that we were coming with good news”
Childhood Christmas started long before Eve. The days were getting shorter, but the evenings were getting fuller. There was the radio and the stories of carolers from the big cities, the snow crunched under the hurried footsteps of parents returning with full nets. The tree was never perfect. It had an empty side, strategically hidden by the wall, and another rich one, “for guests”.
For me, Christmas mostly meant caroling. It was the moment I was waiting for the most, because it wasn’t just about singing, it was about the road, about the community, about how the village became one breath and was literally lit up. We would go caroling through half the village, then we would return home to leave the collected snacks, nuts, apples, cookies and we would start again, this time towards the side of the forest. That road always had something special, or maybe I was more afraid, the silence was deeper, the snow seemed to sound differently under my feet, and the carols could be heard more clearly, they sounded from the whole village.
The most important object with which I went to carol was the bell. It was not just an accessory, but a sign that we were coming with good news. I was holding it tightly in my hand and I had the feeling that without it the carol would not have been complete. I still have that bell today. I never put it on the tree, but I keep it as a living object, which carries in it not only the Christmases of childhood, but also the feeling of belonging, of frozen cheeks. I think a lot of the things I do today as an artist come from those moments.
IRAIDA, artist: “The magic box and some colored icicles, some weathered, broken in places, others in perfect condition”
Holidays with grandparents are memories that I carry deep in my soul. Time has passed, I have made peace with the present where they are no longer physically present, but year after year, when I make the tree, there is a magic box. A box that teleports me through time. Where even the poorest tree looked the most beautiful, and the tree lights had that classic smell that you can’t help but recognize.
It was the most beautiful because we all were. This box has some colorful icicles inside, some more weathered, broken in places, others in perfect condition. Besides the icicles, there was some thin, twisted silver tinsel with a few tufts missing. Regardless of the evolution of Christmas tree decorations, everything in the magic box has its place and fits perfectly, always. They beat the barrier of time, just like the love that remained as alive.
