Festive home swap with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet in part 13 of our Christmas ritual stories
A career woman separates from her life partner and seeks peace and seclusion in the English small town idyll. That’s why she gets involved in a house swap: for two weeks she swaps her Californian home with that of a young British woman who also suffers from lovesickness – just before Christmas.
Well, that’s not necessarily a life story that I would basically identify with. On the other hand, I can very well understand the desire to have time for myself during the holidays by December 26th at the latest. Before that, there was the chaotic and not very contemplative, but definitely loving, Christmas Eve with the whole family under one roof – better said, at one table – with my parents. Then the next day the repetition of it on neutral ground with home-style cooking. Not to forget all the stress in the run-up to Christmas: decorating, buying trees and of course the sometimes desperate search for the right gifts, followed by makeshift wrapping.
Who wouldn’t need a few days of vacation afterwards? Answer: Love – that’s how much we learn from the film of the same name (2006) with Jude Law and Cameron Diaz. The Hollywood flick is so warm, has so much feel-good factor, that the two and a quarter hours that the film lasts seem a bit like a short vacation; matching the English original title (“The Holiday”). Be it because of the charming Kate Winslet alias Iris, the wonderful music by Hans Zimmer, which puts a smile on the audience’s face as well as presses the tear gland, or the “sweet spontaneous meetings” that each of the characters has once during the course of the film and that one wishes for oneself.
Christmas rituals
For some it is the goose on Christmas Eve, for others it has to be “Three Nuts for Cinderella” in the afternoon program. We all have certain stories, films or rituals that belong to Christmas – and without which our Advent season would only be half as festive. This year you will not only find the popular personal stories in the FR advent calendar, but also raffles every now and then. Good luck and in any case: Happy Holidays! FR
Maybe that’s why I made one of my Christmas traditions out of it. In the glow of the candles, the fairy lights and the glowing Christmas tree, I watch “Love doesn’t need a vacation” on Christmas Day, drink homemade eggnog and order a lot of indecent Chinese food. No matter how much roast, red cabbage or dumplings there was in the previous days.
With that, I agree with Cameron Diaz, who says “I want to eat carbohydrates without feeling guilty” when, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, realizes that she needs to “get out of town.” To read a book, to have peace and time for yourself, or “why people otherwise run away” – at least against the stress that makes women’s faces look “wrinkled”.
And at the latest in the first camera shot, in which the supposedly snow-covered village of Surrey and the lovely country house of Iris are shown, I start looking for cheap flights to London and affordable accommodations south of it using my smartphone. While I firmly make up my mind to play my very own version of the film in the next run-up to Christmas – every year.
I wouldn’t mind the company of cute Charlie, Iris’s shaggy dog. And certainly not against the fact that Jude Law unexpectedly appears on the doorstep. By the way: If you feel wanderlust like me when you look, you should look around for the villages of Godalming and Shere. Because this is where this film that warms the post-Christmas heart was shot.
Conclusion: Love doesn’t need a vacation – but the Christmas holidays need this film.
