Home for Christmas

     Twilight is falling over Headington.

   The streetlights have come on, and store displays shine out over the street. A young woman cycles past the almost-deserted Starbucks where I am; she’s bundled up in a scarf and mittens, and I feel even cosier in the dim amber lighting. My macchiato is long cold, but Billie Holliday whisper-croons through my headphones, and I feel a little shiver of sheer joy. I can almost taste it: the arrival of the holiday season, and that particular magic it brings to night-time in the city.

     I can almost taste the holiday season, not exploding onto supermarket shelves and window displays, but creeping out slowly: it is the warm autumn sun glimmering on red-and-gold-and-brown leaves, wet on the pavement as I pedal hard through the crisp air; it is the taste of pumpkin and nutmeg in the muffins I made from Mom’s recipe (almost like home but not quite, like everything in England); it is soft sweaters and mittens and the homey warmth of a scarf around my neck; it is 1940s Christmas music playing (only through my headphones, because it isn’t socially acceptable to play Christmas music yet, but I still take a quiet comfort in listening alone, anyway).

     I think I expected that summer fading and mellowing into autumn and, in turn, chilly autumn days portending frosty winter ones would make me even more homesick. After all, we so often associate the holiday season with home and loved ones that, I feared, the anticipation of Christmas might feel stale and hollow. But I think the opposite is happening. I haven’t run away from the holiday season; the holiday season has come to me in Oxford, and it feels oh-so-much like home.