271. Christmas traditions

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The Christmas and New Year festivities are awash with traditions. For me, this includes a combination of Spanish and British ones, plus some family specials. For example, watching the Vienna New Year’s concert with a cup of espresso, followed by the ski jumping at Garmisch Panterkirchen. As I was growing up, I stuck to those even through some pretty terrible hangovers in the late eighties and nineties. After all, what good are traditions if one iconoclastically bails out just because one overdid the drink the night before? Some others have been abandoned through lack of practicality, a result of emigrating to the UK. And so a new combination of traditions is developed by me, to pass on, partly common with those of my parents, partly my own, partly Sandra’s contributions. This, I guess, is so much a part of our social environment as the political system or the economy, but this part we can protect and cherish, and their survival is entirely down to us. What are your traditions?

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Location: Hereford, UK

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