I’ll be alone for the first time this Christmas, but I won’t be lonely

In The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantès was condemned to life imprisonment in the Château d’if, a lonely tower off the French coast, plus an annual flogging. The human mind being what it is, he couldn’t sit peacefully enjoying the sea view. Instead, his anxious thoughts continually anticipated the pain to come.

I don’t know when he was whipped, but he was probably worrying about it for at least three months in advance, in the same way some of us start losing sleep from mid-october about the prospect of waking up alone on Christmas Day.

No one could have loved Christmas more than I did; as a child it was equal in delight to the first sight of the sea on our summer holiday. The intensity of that joy was enhanced because my parents relaxed their strict regime a little. They made us a present of themselves as they became more friendly.

Everything about Christmas was interesting. My parents lived for a time on a council estate, where they befriended an elderly brother and sister whose tiny flat was filled with antiques. I sensed they were not like other English people, more particular in their tastes, more cultured. They were invited to Christmas lunch every year. I never thought about what they would have done without our invitation and always regretted it when they left at 3pm, not staying for our family games.

I wasn’t always so happy with the guests. My mother once invited an old lady called Bessie on Boxing Day who I thought was odd, and I was right. The day after, she was taken to a mental hospital. I was secretly amused when she whacked my mother with a bunch of flowers when she visited her.

As I got older, Christmas became entwined with romance. Friends became engaged under the mistletoe. My first serious boyfriend bought me an expensive handbag, but we went our separate ways and subsequent relationships didn’t last. My mother and I continued with all our rituals. She insisted on doing the lunch into her nineties and we kept inviting lone neighbours to the table. Then she died and took Christmas with her.

Without her, my status shifted from benevolent host to grateful guest. But teenage children didn’t seem to like me and felt I was slipping towards that terrible category, the old spare part. Perhaps they saw me as another Bessie. I now understood leaving at 3pm.

I spent the first Christmas after my mother’s death abroad on an art holiday, mainly in company with rich widows in their eighties. The following year I invited another single woman to stay. She had no rituals and kept asking why I was putting cloves into satsumas. I felt she was pushing any possible magic further away. We became as tense as any relatives, but without the possibility of expressing irritation.

Since October, I’ve been worrying about the lonely tower looming out of the fog again. I now see my mistake was to try to cling onto the past. I have to remake the event in a totally different way; so I’m going to visit the local community centre, not to be passively fed, but to give lifts and help serve food.

It will be the first time in my life that I’ve woken up alone on December 25th, but millions have to do it. I also have this constructive plan. I’ll spend the evening with good friends, I have parcels to give and receive, and a Boxing Day lunch to cook. It’s just a matter of getting through that huge day with something more than gritted teeth.