When I was a child, visiting my grandmother’s house always felt different from being anywhere else. Everything in her house had a kind of quiet magic. The air smelled faintly of boiled sugar and old wood, the sunlight spilled across the floors in lazy, golden angles, and the floors creaked like they were letting you in on a private joke.
And then once a year December would happen... loudly. The anticipation of hearing car doors slam outside, the sudden stampede of feet, the loud greetings that immediately broke the house’s silence and suddenly the whole place was vibrating with the chaos of children who hadn’t seen each other in months and planned to make up for it in minutes. We’d barrel through the rooms like a small, unsupervised weather system, deciding within minutes whether we were forming alliances, playing games, or starting a feud for the afternoon.
But even with all that noise, my grandfather's study always stayed the same. It wasn’t the “fun” room, not by cousin standards, but it was the room we often gravitated toward.
There were a few rows of books lined up like soldiers, always the same ones, always standing at attention. Somehow though they felt new every time. In that quiet room we’d read, play Monopoly (and pretend not to fight about it), and just down the hall, tucked into a cupboard like contraband, lived the real treasure: the weekly Huisgenoots my grandmother refused to throw away.
There were also the things she’d collected just for me: folders and folders of Liewe Heksie and Bollie cartoons, Jongspan articles about ants, dinosaurs, early humans...Every visit, I’d sit cross-legged on the floor, flipping through them again and again while the summer sun crept across the carpet.
That study waited patiently while I grew, quiet witness to Monopoly victories, gaming marathons, late-night studying, and afternoons lost in stories.
I think that’s why those visits felt magical, the books acted like a measuring stick for the person I was becoming. The magic wasn’t just in the room; it was in the books themselves. They stayed steady while I changed, quietly teaching me something I didn’t yet have the words for: that reading isn’t just about finishing a story. It’s about discovery. About patience. About empathy. About being able to enter a world entirely unlike your own and coming out richer, quieter, more curious than before.
Books are time machines. They are companions, teachers, and mirrors all at once. They measure growth in a way nothing else can. They remind you that even as the world spins fast, there are spaces you can step into that will hold you, nurture you, and challenge you, year after year.
Do you have a December reading tradition like that?
A book, a comic, a magazine, or even a short story you return to every year, like clockwork? One that waits for you quietly on the shelf while the world moves on, while you move on. A story that doesn’t mind if you’re a little older, a little wiser, a little more chaotic than last time.
Maybe you read it for comfort, or for answers, or simply to remember who you were when you first discovered it. Maybe it’s a ritual that signals the end of the year, a pause to reflect, a moment to reconnect with the small, constant joys that never change, even when you do. I would love to hear from you. Drop me a message at info@thestorystation.co.za and let’s chat about your favourites.