Xmas toil: at least the food was good 

By Evie Andreou

I‘VE WORKED so many times on Christmas, mostly at a television station I toiled away almost my entire 20’s, I can’t really single out one, although the highlight of those festive days was the food our employer so graciously had delivered at lunch and dinnertime to the station, usually from a posh catering service.

That was, for me, an if-you-can’t-avoid-it-at-least-enjoy-it situation. I’ve always been a foodie, I’m not ashamed of admitting, so the idea of a scrumptious meal at the workplace including a selection of salads, between two to three hot dishes and a piece of the most divine chocolate cake, the caterer in question was known for at the time, was not bad at all! No souvla on the menu.

The surroundings of course left much to be desired, we usually ate our meals inside the continuity room in front of around 10 screens to monitor the sound and picture quality of the programmes being broadcast, which was anything Christmassy, including long-forgotten films the programming department dusted off the station’s archives, plus entertainment shows and concerts.

The job, in itself, especially after a few years there, was a dreary, tedious one; the excitement of pushing buttons on a console for the transition of one programme to the other had faded at some point. At the time we were doing that manually, it was shortly before deciding a career change and handing in my resignation – in the late noughties – that the station had introduced a more automated system. But having to watch day in day out every TV programme broadcast including soap operas, low-quality local series, live sports and talk shows was draining the life out of me, let alone on Christmas where everyone else you knew was somewhere being merry and bright.

Imagine, having as a young adult, to wake up at the crack of dawn on Christmas Day, not even to go to the church, though in my case this was never the norm, but to get ready for eight hours of broadcasting television shows thousands would be watching surrounded by loved ones, or just enjoying with their festive cup/glass of hot/alcoholic beverage at hand.

I wouldn’t call myself a Grinch since I really don’t hate Christmas, but having to be at the station at 6.30am on that day just killed the holiday magic in me.

And it wasn’t just on Christmas. Being a university student at the time, I would usually do late and holiday shifts because I had classes in the mornings on weekdays, which means I had my fair share of holiday and weekend work. No complaints though, at least that job put me through university.

So yes, If I would choose to remember something from those years it would be the fabulous catering food that gave the day a special note and made us feel appreciated for our ‘sacrifice’. Of course, that was in the good-old days before the economic crisis put a stop to such luxuries. Luckily for me, I don’t have to work on holidays anymore so now I can enjoy my Christmas meals wherever and with whomever I choose to.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.