Not sure if any of you have noticed but Christmas is coming and just so we’re all clear I love pretty much all things Christmas. I’m aware that not everyone feels the same, my timeline has been full of memes about no one wanting to hear about Christmas or see an Elf or hear a carol since the beginning of November. My initial reaction to this strength of feeling was to stay quiet, but I haven’t been able to blog about anything else. Moss and MrP (who are not naturally lovers of all things Christmas, for starters they don’t like glitter, just imagine what this time of year does to a person who doesn’t like glitter?!?) are sick of me wittering on about it. They have ‘subtly’ suggested I write about it. So, here we are.
My experiences of Christmas have given me a real resilience to the seemingly ever popular anti-Christmas feeling. Growing up we didn’t really have any Christmas traditions. To start with we alternated Christmas between our divorced and often warring parents. My mum was on her own with 4 kids and couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried, recreate the idealised picture of Christmas she had in her head. Ideas fuelled by rose tinted images sold to her in the Oxo and John Lewis ads of the 80’s. It was always a really difficult time and the disappointment when things were not as she desperately wanted them to be was palpable. My dad on the other was a true Christmas non-believer. He informed us Christmas was cancelled every year and refused to let it seep in to his house or his heart. He accepted it as something that had to happen ‘for the kiddies’ and allocated a space in the conservatory for anything remotely Christmas related. Like all conservatories in the 80’s it was a glass room filled with bamboo furniture. It cooked us in the summer and was as good as being outside in the winter. I can still feel the damp cold chill of that conservatory on Christmas morning (where we opened all our presents, keeping the wrapping paper ‘all in the one place’). We could often see our breath as we opened presents, fighting over who could sit in front of the small electric fan heater, allowed on for the only morning of the year, just for Christmas. I suspect my love for all things Christmas started whilst observing these battles over the importance and meaning of Christmas. One parent desperately trying to make it nothing short of perfect whilst the other desperately trying not to acknowledge its existence.
Then when I was older I spent my late teens and all of my twenties working in residential homes. Initially homes for the elderly then with people with enduring mental health issues and then with adolescents in Local Authority care. This made me understand the experiences of my childhood were a privilege. There are no words to describe the look on people’s faces and the atmosphere in places like these on Christmas Day. Watching people open presents bought for them by someone employed, paid, to do it. We all, staff and residents, worked really hard to make Christmas as easy and enjoyable as possible. All silently acknowledging none of us could be with our families for whatever reason and we just needed to make the best of it. The cultural traditions were all followed to the letter; presents, trees, carols, big Christmas dinners, Queen’s speech, Eastenders Christmas specials. For some this was a comfort, for others, well, it just wasn’t and only compounded their pain and isolation. For them, Christmas was not just another day and they had no real choices about how to spend it or who they spent it with. These peoples experiences stayed with me, I love Christmas and it is truly awful to see how empty and lonely it can make people feel.
Then kids came along, in the early years a lot of time and effort is spent on pretending Christmas isn’t just another day. When in reality nothing changes too much, naps, meals, snacks and bedtimes all remain pretty much the same except for wearing paper crowns. The massive Christmas dinner is just a fancy version of the daily ritual of dinner refusal, except it takes a whole day to cook and a lot longer to clean up off the floor. The afternoon spent trying not to shout at the kids or at MrP to stay awake. The evening wondering how many Baileys can reasonably be consumed and how much longer you’re going to be able to stay awake for.
Now the kids are older I feel very lucky to have this season of Christmas in my life. This feeling has been made all the more poignant because as the years have gone on we have lost people, old and young. One Christmas 2 years ago I was in hospital on Christmas Eve, as I was being wheeled through the hospital corridors we passed the mortuary and it looked busy. As we passed the porter said ‘a lot of people are having a tough Christmas this year’ and we had a conversation about how difficult it was to work in a hospital at that time. A day like any other maybe, but to the people admitted and those visiting sick relatives, Christmas adds a particular additional cruelty to whatever they’re facing. So, with this in mind, I now go all out, I’m aware it’s not going to be like this forever. If we are very lucky the children will simply grow and change and in a few years be glued to their phones and ipads for the day. I want to make the most of the time we have till then.
Because the trouble is we think we have time and that everyone will still be here or at least be the same next year. We spend the time doing things because we think we should, worrying about whether we should be doing more or buying more. Christmas ads and Instagram (are far worse today than anything around when I was growing up) have us thinking that there is this perfect Christmas, out there somewhere. The endless list of things to be done; elves, cards, plays, parties, decorations, teacher gifts and this year’s “must have” gifts goes on and on, seemingly increasing every year.
But Christmas is the only day of the year when it’s ok just to stay home and do what we like. To get dressed up in party dresses for breakfast or stay in onesie’s all day. To watch TV from sunrise to sunset or blow the dust of the family games and sit and play them for the first time this year. To eat the food we love, whether it’s good for us or not. To spend the day drinking, or not, if that’s what we want to do. If we are lucky enough to have a roof over our heads food on the table and the people that matter around us we choose how we spend Christmas day. It’s having those choices that for me, make Christmas day unlike any other.
It’s one day of the year when we get to stop for a moment and enjoy who is around us and where we are in our lives. This year, despite the losses and how difficult the year may have been, I still have choices. If am lucky enough to be able to enjoy those two days with my children, my family and my friends. Everything else, everything, is just extra tinsel on an already full tree.
Females Forming Sentences 