A different Christmas 

Snow is falling, everyone is wearing winter clothes, and Christmas lights are shining everywhere. I am walking down the street, and in the windows, I see families sitting together celebrating a wonderful fest. I am continuing my way; the next house is my home. From the outside, I see my brothers, my parents, my sister, my aunt, my cousin, and my grandma. They all seem to be very happy. I am thinking back to the last years when we were all sitting together as well. The last years, I stood up in the morning, so that my sister, my dad and I could go to the forest. There, we used to build a crip full of seeds for the animals in the forest, so they can have a wonderful Christmas like us. Afterwards, everyone in my family would cook our dinner on Christmas evening and later we all went for a walk together. Finally, Father Christmas came, the bells rang, the candles were lit, there were presents, and a very special beautiful atmosphere. My whole family was sitting in the living room, and we were singing Christmas songs together. We read the Christmas story, every year the same chapter and I usually get to open the first present because I am the youngest.

Back at the window in front of my house, I still see a part of my family who sits happily together celebrating one of the most wonderful days of the year – but this year, everything is a bit different for them and especially for me.

Then, I open my eyes. The snow is fading away and instead, there are deep blue waves around me and the Caribbean sun is burning on my face.
That is how I started the Christmas morning; sitting at the breakfast table, enjoying the morning of Christmas Eve. Even though it has been the holiday season for a while now, it has not been very peaceful because everyone was still busy with their preparations for the evening. On one table, there were Paula, Leonie and me cutting vegetables for the first dish. Everywhere on board, there were people still finishing their presents or decorating our deck, students on watch duty or taking a shower with one liter of drinking water since our osmosis plant that generates fresh drinking water broke down a few days ago and is still out of service.

Later that day, everyone was sitting at the aft deck. I still saw the inner picture of me standing on the street in front of my house, seeing the window with my family celebrating Christmas. Yet now, there was another image next to it: fifty people are sitting together, there is music and people are saying touching words. That is how Christmas Eve was celebrated on the Thor Heyerdahl this year. We ate delicious food and the theater group acted out an astonishing play. Everyone was laughing and the theater group was doing an amazing job. We heard a touching speech from Solveig, a song from Rosalie and Theresa as well as a sketch with many jokes and of course, we songs together.  Those are just some of the many beautiful things that happened this evening.

Then, the window at home was getting dark, the Holy Eve was slowly coming to an end. On the Thor, however, there was still one light shining and illuminating the portside of the ship. An angel was coming from heaven – well really from the rigg – and she had presents with her. Then, fifty people got together at the aft deck and everyone got their self-made presents. To conclude the day, we all sang Christmas songs together. The day was growing old, there were still some quiet conversations, and the watch was taking over. Slowly, the whole ship turned calm and quiet. When I look back to the day, I am really happy. It was a wonderful day. I was sad and happy at the same time, I missed my family and was grateful to be here, I laughed and cried within one minute. Today was strange, today was beautiful, and today I learned that we all can be very grateful for what we have here as well as at home.