The Christmas I put my horror festive periods behind me
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Version 0 of 1. Christmas, much like a one-night stand, often evokes one of two reactions: slight contempt or delirious excitement. I’ve had 38 of them. Christmases, that is. Some were forgettable, humdrum but with not enough humbug to be memorable. Thinking about others, though, strikes sheer terror into me – there’s been the break-ups (3), the suicide attempt (1), and the soul-battering loneliness (at least 10). Those, I hope with everything I’ve got, are never to be repeated. One of the psychiatrists at a hospital where I was an inpatient had a litmus test for deciding whether or not someone could be discharged. The question he asked himself was, did he feel the patient could get through Christmas and new year with their family without resorting to either suicide or homicide? If it was a yes, it was OK to discharge. Too many failed the test, and with good reason. Everything is heightened during the festive period. Feeling a bit lonely and cash-strapped on a Saturday in July translates into depression and bankruptcy in December. And that’s because Christmas and what it represents has become some kind of toxic mirage. It’s a men’s magazine’s promise of perfect abs in two weeks, a Tinder profile pic. The reality of many of my past Christmases has been the gently disappointed reactions to the presents I give, the inevitable realisation that the Disneyfied happy family TV adverts are a total lie (we know that already but on Christmas Day we really KNOW it), the weight gain, the six-page credit card bills and infuriating self-assembly instructions. Christmas has too often meant listening to a message of charity and hope delivered by someone who never carries cash and SITS ON A THRONE, the panicked search for batteries, the confused elderly relatives, the endless repeats of both TV and food, the brussels bloody sprouts and frankly astonishing numbers of tangerines, the drunken arguments, the food shame and hours of passive-aggression. More painful yet are the (wholly untenable) self-justifications for failing, yet again, to accomplish what I wanted that year; justifications that are made worse by the utterly ludicrous concept of new year’s resolutions which will mean self-hatred with compounded interest at a Wonga-esque APR due for payment the same time next year. But you know what? This year I can see it all differently. All of this is exactly what I’ve now learned to love about Christmas. The imperfection, the messiness – it’ll all help to make this festive period the one that changes it from fantasy to reality for me. The only way I’ve managed to find some peace in this world, at Christmas or otherwise, is by embracing these things. It’s the reason I fall more in love with my wife every time I notice a tiny laughter line appearing, or when she massacres something that should have been a roast chicken. It’s why hearing someone hit a wrong note in a piano recital can sometimes improve the experience. Christmas 2014 will be a cup of tea with my bleary eyed wife, still smelling of early morning. It will be watching her laughing with joy at her presents. It will be a few hundred quid spent making sure a few homeless people are going to get three hot meals and a bed. I’m even looking forward to the onslaught of family dysfunction, dodgy gifts and sugar-addicted kids. After all of the shockers I’ve experienced in the past, give me the not-quite-rightness of this messy Christmas a thousand times over. Because I should be so goddam lucky. |