By Lorrie Hartshorn

Getting blustered by the biting winter chill on my way through Berlin's city centre, I can't help but notice the cheerful posters advertising Berlin's Christmas festivities. Christmas concerts, Christmas Ballets, Christmas Markets...Christmas, Christmas, Christmas.

But what if that's not my thing? What if this perfect image of Christmas isn't something I recognise? Well, no fear. I'd like to take a moment to sip on some Glühwein (any excuse!) and raise my glass to a traveller's Christmas.
Christmas, for me, has never been typical. One or both of my parents would always have to work and we had a very small extended family, so the idea of a white picket fence, 2.4 glowing children, happily opening gifts around an immaculately decorated tree was always just that: an idea.

Then, when I went away to University, I studied foreign languages. I spent a year abroad and my Christmas was in Paris. Perfect, you think! I mean, what could be more festive than the Eiffel Tower glittering with lights on Christmas Eve? France's beautiful capital city could hardly be better. The Christmas markets at La Défense and Nation, with their tasty delicacies and steaming mulled wine to stop you freezing as you stamp your feet and try to decide if you really need to buy those eco-friendly yak's wool gloves from Peru.

But, in truth, the idea of a Christmas abroad and the reality are quite different. Sure, I did all those things. I stomped down the Champs Elysées in hats and gloves, I decorated the tree at the foyer where I lived and I went ice-skating. But, when push came to shove, that wasn't my Christmas, that was my winter. Big difference, see?

Christmas was waking up in a tiny rented room with linoleum floors and wondering what everyone 'back home' was doing right now. It was being jerked out of my nostalgic reverie by cheerful French people banging on the door, yelling in Parisian slang and telling me to get mon cul out of bed. Christmas was heading down to a communal dining room and eating day-old baguette with my chirpy, chain-smoking friends. No one wore red, no one kissed under the mistletoe. There were no presents with ribbons on them and no heart-warming carols to be sung around a log fire. Instead, we spent the day like any other – sitting on cheap, faux-leather sofas with tears in the cushions, laughing and talking about anything and everything before heading up to the canteen and polishing off a spectacularly revolting pasta-bake.

The day was spent like any other, but to me, it was the best Christmas I've ever had. When you have nothing to give except your friendship, your time and a hug, it matters who you give them to. I was in the most beautiful city in the world, surrounded by possibility and opportunity, and yet Christmas, really Christmas, was happily squishing on to a sofa with seven tipsy French friends. As the day wore out and the night wore on, we got merrier, tipsier and altogether friendlier. Christmas was acceptance.
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