Christmas? It’s worse than childbirth
It became clear that Christmas was going to have to be done a little differently
It’s been an extraordinary year for me: a marathon (did I mention that?); hanging out with royals (did I mention that?); getting sober (did I mention that?). But I think the most extraordinary thing of all is that it has taken me this long, some 37 and a half years on the planet, to be precise, to realise that nobody actually likes Christmas.
I’d always had a sneaking suspicion, of course. Every year, around this time, I would speak to people about their plans for the festive period and watch as they broke into a cold sweat, their eyes and mouths twitching as a deathly pallor spread across their faces. “Well, we’re going to the in-laws in Hampshire for Christmas Day, my parents in Yorkshire for Boxing Day, and then we are going to Scotland with friends for new year.”
Cue rictus grin as they contemplate the cross-country expedition they are about to attempt with three children and a dog in a Volvo. “I’m really looking forward to it!”
Or: “We’ve got 20 people coming, so I’m going to spend the next few days stockpiling food as if for the apocalypse, and cleaning the house from top to bottom in preparation for its transformation into a hotel. It’s going to be lovely!” I had to pretend to believe them, that they couldn’t wait to take part in the festive equivalent of climbing Everest, so I’d nod along, beaming, saying things like “Ooh, that sounds wonderful!” and “Wow, seems like it’s going to be a Christmas to remember!”, while thinking: “If only because your therapist will tell you to hold the experience close so that you never make the same mistake again.”
But Christmas is like childbirth. While you’re in it, you’re effing and blinding and wondering what the hell you were thinking; a few months later, you’re contemplating doing it again. And if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result… well, then lock me up, brainbox! Every year, at around 4pm on Dec 25, by which point my mother has usually locked herself in the cupboard under the stairs to cry, I turn to my husband and say: “Next year we’re b-----ing off to Thailand and spending Christmas Day on the beach.” And every year, around September, I forget that Thailand exists and agree to another Christmas watching my mum lock herself in the cupboard under the stairs to cry.
Thing is, this year, around September, I found myself in rehab (did I mention that?), waking up to the realisation that if I drank again I would almost certainly lose my family and very possibly my life, and so it became clear that Christmas was going to have to be done a little differently. “Mum,” I announced, “there will be no more locking yourself in cupboards this year! We’re going OUT!” I announced that we were having Christmas lunch at a restaurant so that someone else could take the strain of preparing a 10kg bird for everyone; there would be no giblets, no repeat of the time she forgot to turn the oven on, no cramming ourselves around a trestle table that would collapse as soon as we sat down at it. “You don’t even have to eat turkey!” I cried. “You can have anything you want off the menu, from beef Wellington to sea bream and beyond! The world is your oyster! You can even have oysters if you so desire!” She started to sob, this time with joy. “That is such a relief,” she said. “I don’t even like turkey! It’s too dry! All this time I had kept that fact to myself, like a dirty little secret, and now finally I feel able to admit it!”
When friends started asking what I was doing for Christmas, more out of grim fascination than anything else (“Christmas? With no booze? THAT DOES NOT SOUND GOOD!”), they too admitted that they found turkey too dry, that they resented having to drink through this day with their family, or, more poignantly, without their family. They asked which restaurant we were going to; I think there’s somewhere near 20 of us now, all rocking up to eat beef Wellington. I am nervous, but excited, too. How bad can it be? No worse than watching the woman who gave birth to you have a nervous breakdown because she forgot the potatoes.
If I’ve learnt anything this year, it’s that you don’t have to do the same thing over and over again in the hope of getting a different result – be it drinking too much or eating food you don’t like in a situation you find stressful. And even if this is how you have chosen to spend Monday, don’t beat yourself up too much about it. It’s just a day.
The expectations we have are all in our heads – it doesn’t have to be this way, or that way, just your way. So however you are spending Christmas, I hope that it is a happy one. And if it’s not, I’ll see you in Thailand in 2018.