When I first celebrated Christmas in the early 1970s, it wasn’t that special to me. The month December had already given me the necessary excitement; on the evening of December 5th, on Pakjesavond, I received plenty of Saint Nicholas presents, and exactly one week after this Dutch festivity we all had to celebrate my birthday. Once again, I received even more presents.

A few weeks later when the world celebrated the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, it just passed me by. In kindergarten (Roman Catholic) I was the one who always got to put little baby Jesus in the Nativity Scene. Because it was always displayed on my birthday (I was the chosen one). After four or five months that same baby Jesus was sentenced to death, crucified on a cross. That was a thing I couldn’t comprehend as a kid. Years later, I understood that there were many years between the original Christmas and ‘Good Friday’.

We weren’t a religious family, so Christmas was not celebrated very grandly at home. Of course, we had a Christmas tree standing in the living room, a few lighted cardboard Christmas decorations in the window and red, paper fold-out Christmas bells were pinned into the wallpaper. Christmas was not a religious festive for our family. And it certainly was far from religion in 1971, the year I just turned 5 years old.

My father was setting up the Christmas tree and as he was trying to hang the Christmas lights into the tree, it didn’t go as my father had foreseen; by accident my father kicked his foot through the chair seat. He lost his balance, thereby kicking the chair across the room, against the coffee table and fell, with strings of Christmas lights in his arms, into the tree. It was the first time I heard various kinds of religious curses. A few moments later I learned even more of these unchristian curses when I asked my father, “Are the Christmas lights still working?