Outside the window it is night. Warm and sparkling like a cat’s eyes. Frost paints winter landscapes on the windowpane. Outside, snow drifts down in small flakes from the bright sky. How is it that they keep returning? Like a bmerang, every year they come faithfully, regardless of the evil spreading among us, to bring people joy, love and peace. Christmas... once again, for a moment, we become children... memories come alive like an album of yellowed photographs, new dreams and hopes are born. The scent of mushrooms and stewed cabbage mingles with the sharp aroma of the Christmas tree, the white tablecloth, hay, baubles and angel hair... carols sung to the Little One... And another year has passed. In the wardrobe, beside old clothes and my school uniform, a half-term party dress has blossomed. Time passes so quickly... Next year, beside the next Christmas tree, I will have a “green ticket to adulthood...” in my pocket, and yet I am still such a child! I still cannot wait for the next surprises in the Advent calendar and I still believe in Santa... I like the pre-Christmas frenzy of cleaning, the smell of floor polish, shopping bags bursting at the seams, the postman bringing Christmas cards, and the carp our cat tries to fish out of the bathtub. I like green branches covered in soft fluff, the rustling paper in which presents are wrapped, the grinding sound of poppy seeds being passed through the grinder, the howling of the wind outside the window... I feel sentimental about the dried fruit that Monika and I secretly “pick out” before Mum notices, and about “hunting” for presents for those closest to us. The atmosphere of Christmas and the Great Mystery – THE BIRTH OF THE LORD – quietens me inwardly. At that time I feel that I love the whole world. I feel this love within me despite the rifts that divide us during the year. I want to shout out my apology, but I am afraid of ridicule, because the word “sorry” is like a stone. It lodges in the throat and is difficult to cough up or swallow; sometimes we put it off for so long that afterwards we no longer know what to do with it. It is hard to say “sorry”; it is easier to turn one’s back and walk away... I know, because I do the same. Like everyone else. So today I say I am sorry and extend my hand, holding a wafer, to everyone who wishes to accept it. ... School—we will cry again with Gośka; this is already our eleventh Christmas Eve celebration. The classes and settings have changed, years and experience have accumulated, and every year, as we break the wafer, we cry harder and harder. Besides, someone joins our group. Driven by an unknown force, on this day we notice everything that we fail to see every day: people we pass in haste, lost in thought and indifferently. Simple things, and therefore so beautiful. The Lord came to save the world; let us proclaim His glory! Let us tear ourselves away from televisions, computers and video games. Let someone lonely sit with us at the table, so that they may warm themselves by the warmth of our hearts, so that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” As I break the wafer with you through these words, I wish you all the very best.