My aunt Mantha loved Christmas. She always went out of her way to make it 1 and cosy for everyone around her. December 2022 was no 2 . Mantha drove three hours to visit everyone two weeks before the 25th and to drop off 3 to her friends. We chatted about our plans, 4 and kissed goodbye when it was time to 5 .
So when on December 18. Mantha's son called us sadly to tell us Mantha had passed away 6 at home, none of us could quite believe it. So close to Christmas, none of us felt like 7 . That was until my sister-in-law, Vera told us about some 8 of hers in the office who were from China had just arrived in the UK.
We knew we couldn't leave them to spend the day by themselves, especially after we heard how 9 they were to experience a proper English Christmas. More importantly, we knew Mantha would have wanted us to throw open our doors and give them a Christmas to 10 .
When the day finally came, we 11 them into the house with open arms and tried to 12 our pain so we could give them the full Christmas 13 .
It didn't 14 the pain of Mantha's absence but connecting with strangers and 15 our culture helped us get through the day and turned out to be the very thing we all needed.
