Xmas like no other as we look to the future

IS IT really Christmas next week? I know it creeps up every year but in 2020, a year that has felt like a decade, the rapid approach of December 25 feels like a particularly sneaky attack.

And yet there are only six days to go. We’re supposed to be in that final phase of planning where all you have to do is wrap the presents, put the sprouts on, and nurse your hangover from the office Christmas party.

Instead, the entire month of December has felt like nothing more than the dampest of squibs.

But then, nothing this year has felt like it should. Not easter, when over a third of the world’s population was in full lockdown and buying a chocolate egg meant a 20-minute queue outside the supermarket in the rain.

Not summer holidays which, if they were taken at all, were more likely wet weekends in Wester Hailes than the usual sun-soaked foreign affair.

And now here we are at the biggest holiday of the year, and it bears as much resemblance to Christmas as an over-cooked poussin does to a plump, farm-reared turkey.

The news emanating from Covid HQ is hardly cheering. There is dark talk of parts of Scotland being put into Level 4 next week, with ominous signs our hospitals are struggling, some almost at breaking point. There is the inevitable suggestion there may be another lockdown after Christmas, which will drag on into January and beyond.

Around half of Scots have said they have no plans to socialise over Christmas, instead battening down the hatches and staying put.

For those forming festive bubbles, even just for the day itself, the guilt and fear is enough to cast a dark pall over the proceedings. In this climate, it’s tempting to simply pull the covers over your head and wait for January.

I understand that sentiment, really I do. This is uncharted territory. It is difficult for us all to navigate, because none of us have ever experienced anything like it.

But when I was talking myself into a little bit of Christmas spirit the other night (gin, actually), it occurred to me that I do have something of a roadmap for this strange festive season.

Because last year, I had a Christmas like no other. One which was difficult, foisted upon us by circumstance, where we simply had to make the best of it.

My father had died nine months earlier. The familiar, comforting family rituals of Christmas suddenly felt sad and meaningless. I had to force myself to put up decorations, to listen to the excited plans of others, to pretend that everything was Ok when my heart was focused on the empty chair at the dining table.

And so, faced with an assault of painful memories, we did the only thing we could: we made new traditions.

For the first time, my Mum came to mine for Christmas. We had a small ham instead of the usual turkey, with glistening red cabbage and a maple syrup glaze.

We drank gin, watched The Crown, ate avocado toast for breakfast and left the carol- singing to the choir of kings College, Cambridge.

It wasn’t perfect, but it felt right, somehow. Instead of trying to recreate the past, we turned it on its head.

If ever there was a time to make new traditions, it is this year.

PerHApS it’ll be a Zoom call with relatives, or a long lie for the usually beleaguered cook. Goodness, if you’re alone, or it’s just the two of you, why not sack off Christmas dinner completely, get your phone out and order an enormous pizza instead?

In the past few weeks my neighbourhood has gone all out on the decorations in a way it never has before.

Whole streets are lit up like the Blackpool Illuminations. One house has a tree with so many twinkly lights it wouldn’t surprise me if it was visible from the International Space Station.

people are doing their own thing, in their very own way. Lighting up their homes while the world remains in darkness. Because when you’re in the middle of pandemic, haven’t hugged loved ones for months, and the halcyon spring days of a vaccine seem a long way away, what else is there to do?

This Christmas won’t be easy for any of us. But we will get through it by doing what we can, casting aside what we can’t, and reminding ourselves that there really will be brighter days ahead.