Twenty years is nothing

And yet so many things have passed since I bought this Royal Mail Christmas 1993 Presentation Pack.

I was living in London for a term, on my first research stay for my Ph.D. and the letters I started receiving as Christmas was approaching bore stamps from Dickens's Christmas Carol. I was looking forward to going back home for Christmas with my family, but also sad for having to say goodbye to so many people I did not know if I would see again, and anxious about a new avenue in my life. I experienced my first London Christmas season; the first of many to come. I wanted to take home some of that Christmas flavour and this included my first ever Royal Mail Presentation Pack. I strongly remember my looking forward to seeing my Misi again. As I write this, Michi is next to me. Twenty years. Misi was then just one year old. He would have turned 21 this November, Michi is two and a half. Wow, so many things, so many days, so many friends. Who says that twenty years is nothing? It's a wealth of seconds, minutes, hours, days spent and shared. 20 Christmas.
Going through life implies having to learn to live with absences, which are more present than ever during the Christmas season, to remind us that they're not really gone. I have two absences to add this Christmas, and tears cannot really convey the pain this causes me, but I'm sure they're eager for me to know that they're just round the corner, so I won't allow my heart to grow too sad. I will celebrate the Christmas present and past and live in hope for the Christmas yet to come.
"And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!"