Hope never dies. But it can go out. Just like the first candle on advent wreathsbearing the same name. I didn’t know that was the case for a long time. Although I lived with my parents right next to the Church, there could be no talk of flames of hope or love. It was a pub where, according to Aunt Klotylda, the men were drinking non-Christian money. But the others sat. There were often women’s cries from the street, not unlike the liturgies. Lord God, you see it! Jesus Christ, hold me! Knowing that I lived in a country with a strong Christian tradition, I was confronted from an early age. And not only in the run-up to Christmas, but every day of God. Except Monday. They had it closed in the Church.
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The second candle is called Peace. The same name spanned the gate of the collective farm, where most of my classmates’ fathers worked. They spent long hours together in Peace, but when Advent came, the time of gathering added a little more. They gathered and immediately after the shift to the Church. They were there almost daily in December, supposedly for their wives to have peace of mind to bake the bishop’s sandwich. Yeah, when Christian mercy circulates in your veins along with the golden drink, you have no choice. Dads were just divine. Maybe that’s why Pep’s mother often said that she only had a cross with her husband. But that was not true. We happened to know very well that Pepa has three older brothers. Therefore, his mother and father have not only a cross, but also four sons. Holy woman!
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They couldn’t come up with a better name than Friendship for the third candle, I realized when I got married. Only the mighty support of my friends, nourished heavily by hectoliters of the drinker together, prevented me from committing a mortal sin. I wasn’t far from it when my husband decided to brew eggnog according to my grandmother’s recipe. Maybe I shouldn’t have stressed so much that Grandma made it with just a little rum. Or, on the contrary, I should have emphasized more that she did not immediately spill the spirits she did not consume down her throat. Whatever the trigger, instead of liqueur, I had milk with eggs in a pot and a guy with a monkey in bed. I didn’t kill. I still have this mortal sin in reserve. But I still have my throat constricted when I light the last candle called Love on the Advent wreath. This is where I feel towards my family. Although – like me – she’s not a bit holy.
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So beautiful Advent, friends.
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