Mid-December has become synonymous with homesickness. I begin to miss my mother’s anxiety about the sweet spread. I start to romanticise my childhood memories of her returning from her 12-hour day shift as a private nurse to orchestrate the making of kuswar. When we were very young, this was a time we were allowed to sleep late, and it had its own thrills. It was also exhilarating to be included in the process, to watch my mother’s fingers roll a kulkul off one of the red combs we would have borrowed from a neighbour and try to mimic those movements. We listened to Christmas carols and the house always had a special fragrance. On some days you could trace it to the guavas that had been boiled for perad, on others it was the rich ricey scent of dodol, or the deep-fried caramelised goodness of nevris.

Yesterday my youngest niece sent a video of one of my brothers folding the semi-circular edges of a nevri. He was seated at the wooden kitchen table that has been a witness to all our childhoods, my mother nearby, closely supervising. I had instant flashbacks of being part of this inner circle, feeling so proficient with my fingers, and participating in the feeling of pride on Christmas day when we finally laid out all the sweets we had so lovingly and collectively made to offer our non-Christian neighbours and visitors.