As a lad from sunny Sydney, Christmas always coincided with mid summer's blue skies, mangos and birdsong.But in the 4pm darkness of Berlin, Christmas is a time for dreaming and introspection.
Hibernating like this city's symbol, I find myself rising at 11.00am and breakfasting at midday. When not consciously engineering reasons to make contact with the increasingly rationed daylight, I often discover that night has fallen before I've left the house.
This state of solar preciousness makes me realise the true value of light inside and outside the winter home. When short days breed deep thoughts that echo the external darkness, candles can soften a room and the people inside it. Challenged by a chiascuro glow, dark ideas are tempered and contained.
Outside, street lights keep the urban peace.
I noticed when I returned to Berlin from Sydney this November that the easy going Berliners of the previous summer had turned irritable and impatient. Within a few days, I had too. Winter adds an effort to daily chores and it's difficult to exchange public courtesies when all you want to do is get indoors.
Like the candles in our homes, Berlin's Christmas street lights try to contain our gruff or sad nature. Yule-tide street lights are not just atmospheric seasonal symbols of good cheer, but a psychological and social necessity. Juice for the pineal gland, they're reminders that warmth and sunshine, leisure and courtesy, will reappear at the end of the winter tunnel.
The street lights give the grey houses a bit of colour as well. Lightfestivals are wellcomed and, yes, Berlin can be very depressing in winter.
ReplyDeleteA good friend of mine in London has this to say about xmas lights:
ReplyDelete"I've always wondered why the lights have to come down after Epiphany...seems like a cruel and brutal blow, when December's been a sea of light and warmth ( in my sitting room, at least!) to have to face January & that bleak & sober stretch of a whole 31 days without twinkly lights. ( And why does January get to have so many days?? Why couldn't we have gone for a 33 day June instead?)
But I can never quite bring myself to prolong it either, it seems like seasonal cheating to consider keeping the tinsel up any longer... Surely there ought to be a moratorium on work and a full scale festival of light til about the 21st of January"
As in London, Xmas trees in Berlin come down on Jan 6. Seeing our street turned overnight into a cemetery of discarded Xmas trees (awaiting collection by city workers), I felt a little forlorn.
Citing practicalities like the need for daylight and more than one pair of hands, we have decided to wait until the weekend to give our tree its street funeral. This indeed constitutes 'seasonal cheating', but I'm very happy we have a couple for nights with our tree.
Perhaps the best solution to the winter blues of January are best found in places like Basel and Cologne, where the '5th season' of pre-Lenten Karneval gives everyone the chance to go mad with revelry.