The orchard of charades

Another year, another Christmas. At least that was the thought that had stayed from the year before, right after the Christmas day. Yes, it is true, it happens to everybody on the 26^th, when not even 24 hours have passed since the last Christmas and we are already thinking about the next one. Truth is, each passing day, there is one less day until the next Christmas!

This year’s Christmas would not be the same. This damn pandemic has made this Christmas different from all others, unfortunately for the worse. We were all trapped inside our own homes, away from our lives. Away from our families. Even in a small country like Portugal, my family, the Lopes family, like many other families, would not be able to be together on Christmas eve, which would make this season even harder for everyone.

I am Rita, I am twelve years old and I am the youngest of the family. My family is the typical Portuguese family from the interior, quite numerous e very united. My mom, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lopes, has four sisters and two brothers and, although I am an only child, I have fourteen cousins with whom I grew up and still continue to spend lots of time, as if we are all brothers and sisters.

We all grew up at our grandparents’ house because we stayed there when our parents had to go to work.  We played everywhere, in the living room, in the kitchen, in the yard with its orchard, in the garden… and the older cousins were responsible for helping with the younger ones, trying to avoid the inevitable confusion.

Now it is easier, some of the cousins have grown up and do not need to stay at grandparents' during the day, but it hasn't always been that quiet. We really drove her crazy. The poor woman was resolving a disarray between some of us and another one had already started elsewhere in the house. Fortunately, there was always our grandfather, with his sweet and comforting smile he was even able to calm a storm. Without needing great threats, he was able to bring peace to that house and especially to our grandmother.

Every year at Christmas the family gathers and, as you may imagine, it is a big mess. It is an opportunity to see that cousin that we have not seen for a long time because he is studying at the university or that uncle who had to emigrate and only comes here during these special times. It is really a time where joy and love reign. Even for our grandmother, who is completely shocked by the confusion caused at her home, it is a special time and she cannot hide the sparkle in her eyes the whole time we are there with her.

Every Christmas had the same routine, on the 24th I woke up very early and went with my mother to my grandparents' house. I had to prepare for the most fantastic night of the year and for that, the cousins would meet during the day. The animation began with warnings to behave and the smells of typical Christmas sweets that were prepared for the night. The games were defined for the beginning of the evening and who would bring them and be responsible for their organization. It was a whole process in a machine well-oiled by the experience of many Christmases past.

When evening came and the family meal was over, where we were up to date with the latest romantic adventures of my cousin Luís, Rita's sporting achievements and how successful my Uncle Carlos' business is, it was time to play!

We started by playing the board games that we had brought while everything was cleaned and organized to make way for the annual tradition: the annual charade competition. The teams are always the same, each uncles' couple and their children form a team, and the grandparents are the judges of the whole game.

"Let's start the game!", shouted grandmother, "Everyone to the living room". The armies began to move, the tension began to arise in the air, each team began to prepare for an intense challenge in which all friendships were forgotten, was to defeat or be defeated.

"Be prepared to lose, we won't lose again like last year," threw John. The truth is that his team was used to winning and last year it was me and my parents who got the victory in a historic performance by my mother, which made Carlos especially angry and me even happier precisely for that. I'm his age and although we're best friends, we're ultra-competitive among us and we always want to be the best, so when we manage to beat each other the victories have another flavour.

"Let's take it easy kids, you already know that the important thing is to participate". Grandpa, as always, managed to calm things down before the confusion started.

The competition is very simple: grandparents have different cards with different categories and all teams have five minutes do make the other teams guess their words. For each word guessed right, both teams get a point, if nobody gets it right nobody gets points. In the end, whoever gets the most points is the winning team and as a prize has the honour of distributing the gifts later. It's not a big prize, but what matters most is the chance to brag about winning for a whole year!

Everyone liked to win, but they liked even more the moment that followed the great competition. Before the distribution of the gifts, once the high moment of the night for the little ones, there was a special moment for everyone. The time of the great aunt Maria's Christmas story.

It's true, there was still a very special person involved in this whole mess, our great aunt Maria. She was our grandmother's older sister and had always lived with her. She was already very old and physically weak, yet her mental youth kept fascinating us every day. All her life she had been a primary school teacher and now that she was retired, she would help to take care of us. With her knowledge and tenderness, so typical of teachers, she helped us with our homework, taught us new things and what we all liked, and she also loved, she would tell us lots of stories. Some real and some invented, but always so fascinating, capable of transporting us to other worlds.

Every Christmas, at the end of the great competition, great aunt Maria had the ability to calm the mood and with her story she was able to move everyone and everything, even that toughest cousin who "never cried". She knew how to tell a story and always had the ideal stories for each occasion. That's how it's been since I can remember... that's how it was last year... this year, unfortunately, it wouldn't be like that.

Great aunt got COVID and could not resist the damned disease.

This Christmas would be different than usual, but with this it lost an essential piece of that magical night. It would be the first big family reunion without his presence and even if behind a screen, everyone expected his story. Unfortunately, this would not happen, however, life must go on and the cousins decided to get their hands dirty and organise the best Christmas evening possible, even if each one was in their own home.

The preparation started with online meetings a week before the big night. The "Are you listening well?" and the "You have the microphone off we are not listening to you..." became part of the normal life of Lopes' cousins.

The preparation went on, it was decided that we would be able to adapt the traditional annual charade competition. The uncles who would stay with the grandparents, those who live right next to them (because there is in every family an uncle who lives next to the grandparents) would ease the transmission to the competition juries and each one would do their charades at home, through webcams. It seemed that not everything was lost this Christmas.

"What about the gift exchanges?", remembered Joana, "Ah...", "Oh...", "Eish..." were the possible reactions, it seemed that nobody remembered the gifts anymore, but we had to do something. In spite of everything, Christmas is also the exchange of gifts between us, gifts that take beyond the physical value. Gifts that carry a more important sentimental value.

"We can always just do it when all this is over...", suggested cousin Luis.

"Don't be a greedy! Of course there has to be a gift exchange!". The feeling was shared by all of us, but we were not arriving at any solution...

After an awkward and unusual silence in our meetings, one of the cousins had a simple and brilliant idea: "The most rational thing to do is to deliver the gifts to each other wrapped in plastic or something else, only one of us removes that plastic and we keep the gifts in "quarantine" until Christmas Eve. On that day, we open all the gifts. How about that?"

Followed by another embarrassing moment of silence in which we were all mentally rethinking the idea, the general opinion was to move forward with it. The idea was so simple that we all thought we were all dumb for not even thinking about it right away.

All planned. It was not long before the big day arrived. Despite the gloomy tranquillity during the day, contrasting with the uproar of previous years, the night was expected to be lively. The gifts had been distributed as agreed and were all at the home of their future owners. The papers for the charades were already with the juries and everyone had prepared the place in their homes for the video chat transmission.

At 8 p.m. sharp, the sharing began. Dinner was going to be shared online, but it was known from the start that it would be difficult to get in touch with the other houses, however, there were a few jokes or funny events shared and the atmosphere became lighter and the animation started in a shy way.

After dinner it was time for the big competition. After dinner it was time for the big competition. The tension started to rise, everyone was ready and even far away they all wanted to win.

After dinner it was time for the big competition. The tension started to rise, everyone was ready and even far away they all wanted to win. The first team started, they started in the animal category, quickly getting points for the words "Monkey", "Chicken", "Cat" and "Duck", the latter that brought some confusion and excitement for the resemblance with "Chicken". The attempts to represent and guess the word caused a lot of general laughter. It was at this moment that the team of cousins Rita and Teresa left the video chat.

We interrupted the game while we were waiting and when they came back we continued, however, if it wasn't that team, there was always one that was having problems and it was starting to become impossible to keep up with the competition. The atmosphere began to get less lively than it was supposed to, which did not go unnoticed. Our adaptation of the charade competition was not working.

"This is not working", grandfather quickly understood the problem and even quicker proclaimed the solution, "This year is indeed an atypical year", he thought aloud, "As the jury of this competition I declare that there will be no winner this year. Let's keep playing and just have fun, which is the main goal of our game and what we need the most to forget that we are all so far away when we wanted to be so close".

Nobody could say no to grandpa and the truth is that we all knew it was the best decision. "Next year we win," I thought as I left my competitive mode and was ready to just enjoy the rest of the evening. And the truth is that it happened, I didn't remember having so much fun a long time ago! We broke rules, we invented new rules, we cried with laughter. We could not ask for a better adaptation to our great competition in this year of so much anguish and sadness.

The game has ended. Silence settled in. It was the time of great aunt's story, but she wasn't with us and nobody knew exactly what to do. Everyone except grandpa, as always.

"Great aunt Maria is not with us, but I am sure she would like us to continue the tradition that she loved so much on this very special day for the family. So I'll take her turn, it won't be of the same quality, but I hope you still enjoy it...".

"Wait Grandpa, me and Rui have a surprise." - said Cousin Pedro. He and Rui were the older cousins and were always involved in different projects, so we were all in the expectation to see what they had to show us.

"We've always loved great aunt's stories. That is why we decided a few months ago to record those stories to remember later whenever we wanted. We did not expect her to be with us already this Christmas, however, being astute as ever, she asked us to record a special story to show her the first Christmas she was not. This is that story".

Then they shared the video they had recorded, and we all started to see our great aunt talking, in a kind of Christmas miracle. We were all amazed by such a surprise and immediately felt that warmth that only she could transmit to us as soon as she started talking.

"Hello my darlings. I understand that if you are watching me through this video it is because I am no longer among you. I leave you with one last story that I hope you will treasure in your hearts with affection and love.

Everyone knows well the orchard in the grandparents' backyard. We all lived there some of the best and worst moments of our lives. What many do not know is the history of that orchard. It didn't exist when we moved here, me and the grandparents, there was only a small yard that needed a lot of love and affection.

We then had an idea of which we are still very proud, that pride which warms our soul. We decided that we would plant three fruit trees, one for each of us and that we would do it for all the new members this family would eventually have.

The truth is that we went along with the plan and the family grew and the orchard followed that growth. It was special to see the connection that everyone was creating as they grew and how quickly that became the special place for our family.

Now is the time for the orchard to lose a tree. I don't want you to see this as something sad, I want you to always remember that it is not for a tree that dries that the orchard dies. Keep your roots firmly on the ground, stretch your trunk well, display your fruits with pride and together continue to form a wonderful orchard. The orchard of the Lopes family.

A big kiss from your great aunt who loves you!”

The video has ended. A new silence was installed, but this time a different atmosphere was in the air. In all the houses the families were hugging, some were crying, others were trying to fit everything in the best way, while others simply had a radiant smile from ear to ear.

After we calmed down a bit the night continued with the exchange of gifts that took place as planned. As good as some of the gifts may have been, for everyone the best gift this Christmas had been the video of our great aunt and the certainty that the best we could receive this Christmas and in any other Christmas was our family, were those we love the most.