by Ana Stjelja

We all love Christmas. We look forward to it with a special joy and excitement. And why we feel so? Simply because Christmas is the time when families are gathering, sharing their time together, exchanging gifts, and feeling happy.

But unfortunately, not all the people of this world can have this perfect Christmas. There are some lonely or poor people who spend Christmas in sorrow and despair. Every year, I think of them. And I feel a strong empathy, trying to send them some positive energy as I know that God hears my prayers and my whispers. I know that He will protect them, wherever they are and no matter how sad they feel.

I enjoy preparing for Christmas. Although it can’t be exhausting sometimes, but still there is some special and hardly explicable feeling that fills my heart in the time before the Christmas. I enjoy being surrounded by my family, my loved ones, I enjoy decorating my Christmas tree and put decorative lights in my garden. I like every corner of it to glow and shine.

Sometimes, I scroll pages of the family album. Every Christmas is also the time when I remember the members of my family who departed, and that sometimes brings tears to my eyes.

I miss them and I wish they were here with me, every Christmas. But they actually are, as they live in my heart and my memory forever. The Christmas is also the time when I draw a line, thinking of what I did good in my life, the time of self-questioning or introspection, whether I acted right or wrong in certain situation. This is the time when I turn to prayers. I ask God for forgiveness and for giving me strength to move on, to be better for myself and for others.

Christmas is the time of God’s blessings, that we all should take with pure heart and great love.

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Ana Stjelja is a poet, writer, translator, journalist, researcher and editor from Belgrade, Serbia. In 2012, she obtained her PhD (on the life and work of the Serbian woman writer Jelena J. Dimitrijević). She published more than 30 books of different literary genres in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Slovenian, Farsi, Chinese, Arabic, Azerbaijani and Greek. She’s the Editor-in-chief of the Alia Mundi magazine for cultural diversity, online literary magazine Enheduana and Poetryzine, an online magazine for poetry in English.

In 2018, she established the Association Alia Mundi for promoting cultural diversity. She is also a regular collaborator of The Poet Magazine from England, conducting interviews with contemporary world poets, and a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia, the Association of Literary Translators of Serbia, the Association of Journalists of Serbia and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).