Posted by newfavourite
on Thu 20 Nov 08, 6:49 PM to newfavourite's blog.
'It's 34 days till Christmas: Book your party now!' cheered the poster in the St Pancras station restaurant. Do people really have Christmas parties in train stations? I can see them now, making hats out of serviettes, tucking in to their BLTs and enjoying a pain au chocolat for pud, all washed down with the most miniscule bottle of gin on the planet.
I had managed to avoid all sign of it until this week which is pretty good going, considering the season of crazed consumption is advertised from August bank holiday onwards. But now the spirit of Christmas bollocks has well and truly descended. I feel it dragging me down, and back, to all my miserable childhood yules at once. I cannot shake it off.
Ever since I was a gawky, introspective five year-old (what do you mean, I haven't changed a bit??), I have been trying and failing to achieve the impossible, and split myself in two for Christmas. My parents managed it, in unceremonious style, in 1975, when it was always dark, and wallpaper was brown and orange. The nuclear family can be sliced perfectly in half, leaving the child feeling inadequate that she cannot do the same.
I can laugh a hollow laugh, to think that 33 years later, I am still gripped by that schizophrenic desire. I put off for as long as is physically possible, the moment when I have to decide what I am doing for Christmas Day. My Dad does the same, but he is really waiting for me to invite him. He lives alone and I always feel responsible for him at Christmas. One brave year I told him I had other plans, and he stayed in by himself with a TV dinner and a bottle of shandy. This time I wasn't so strong, and finally caved in and agreed to go and see him again. Then my Mum, she of the shattering tact, relayed to me on the phone how my step-Dad had plunged into an evil mood when he heard I wasn't going to theirs this year. 'She hasn't spent Christmas with us for years' he had wailed, apparently. Sometimes they forget to invite me (and that they put us in this situation in the first place), but that is not the point.
The conversation with my Mum lurched me back to when I was a kid, parcelled up onto a train to visit my Dad for Christmas, or sat on the sofa at Mum's, rifling through the presents by the tree. This time, I will get it, won't I? The superpower that every only child from a broken home needs, to clone myself and be in two places at once on the only day of the year it matters. But no, I get the usual array of scented candles, books, gloves and chocolate coins. The disappointment, the guilt, the heartbreak, it's the same feeling in a slightly different gift wrap each year.
The one good thing about being a grown-up, is I get to remind myself that this sadness is the luxury of someone who has both her parents to love, be loved by and worry about. But I am not happy being haunted by the Christmas Spirit, and I for one am looking forward to when it is all over for another year. Only 35 days to go.
Edited Thu 20 Nov 08, 6:56 PM by newfavourite
| 28 Nov 08, 6:34 PM wonderer UK, 5 yrs  |
How sad that the burdensome side of Christmas should be so heavy and overshadow the joyous aspects. But I know what you mean. It was a great releif when I married and we had the strenght to stand up to parents and say we'll spend Chistmas Day in our own home, - one humbler than theirs but meaningful as our own. Somehow going to a parental home is invalidating one's own as a place for a key celebration. I knew one (adult) couple (without children) who both came under such pressure from parents every year that they went their separate ways onm Christmas Day and celebrated it for themselves on another day. I also remember in my single days I started having a big party on Christmas Eve which was fun (but a lot of work). I do hope you find your own way of enjoying the season.
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| 28 Nov 08, 8:31 PM newfavourite UK(S), 4 yrs |
Thank-you. I used to have a party on xmas eve as well,
but work and life have taken over so I don't get
round to organising it. I have married friends who are under just as much pressure from families at this time of year, so I'd best not get married just to avoid that festive issue!
Fight The Power |
