‘A FESTIVE CONFESSION…’
from Marian Keyes
Funny, frank and unfiltered, here’s novelist Marian Keyes on how she found an easy way to feel less stressed at Christmas
LLet me whisper this… I’m not a fan of Christmas. It’s the very worst time of the year for pushing us towards overload. So about a decade ago, I took the daring decision to not send Christmas cards. Appalling, I know, but writing those cards every December was a torment. I wanted to convey, ‘I think warmly of you and those happy times we shared in that horrible job, but I’m not sure we have anything in common any more,’ but that sort of note takes thought. The last thing I wanted was to invite trouble by dashing off a cheery, ‘This year HAS to be the one we finally meet up! Let’s make it happen, and soon!’ Because, before I knew it, I’d find myself on a plane to Leeds to spend a tense, hour-counting weekend.
This actually happened to me with a woman who had once, in the far-distant past, been my partner-in-crime. We’d shared countless post-mortems of our disastrous lives, but now everything in her world was shiny and perfect. Her husband was a gifted golfer, one of her daughters played the oboe* and was a prodigy in youth wind-instrument circles, and the other had been in an ad and got free clothes for a year.
It was all lovely, lovely, lovely, but the shiny walls of my old friend’s life were unscalable and I spent the entire weekend parroting: ‘That’s amazing. And that’s amazing, too. And, well, that’s also amazing.’ I was genuinely glad my erstwhile pal was happy but I enjoy a bit of dysfunction in a family – how else am I meant to bond?
As well as the difficulty of striking the right note of friendly-but-let’snot-ever-meet in my messages, the sheer volume of cards I had to send every year was terrifying. I seem to know an enormous number of people and I dreaded the hand-cramping hours ahead of me, trying to remember spouses’ names (Nick? David? Safest to just stick to ‘Give my love to that gorgeous man of yours’).
Of course, there was the option of doing a roundrobin Christmas letter, but I never want to be a person who writes things like, ‘Roderick was made managing director and is now driving around in a red BMW. He cuts quite the dashing figure! July saw us jetting to the sunnier climes of Marbella, where the azure sea and designer shops put a spring in our step!’
For whatever reason, those round-robin things can come across as one long boast-athon. It would be so much nicer if they said something like: ‘Roderick was made managing director and has chronic gastritis from the fear. They gave him the BMW that his predecessor (a woman) had and he’s mortified to be behind the wheel of a red car. He begged for something in silver, he said he’d be happy with a Corolla, but nothing doing. He finds queueing at traffic lights particularly shaming… Marbella was a nightmare. We thought it would be glamorous, but it was just a lot of wonky facelifts.’
The first year I decided to not send Christmas cards, my guilt was terrible. As cards began to arrive, it took all my strength to not cave in and start scribbling at high speed. ‘No,’ I coached myself, ‘I must endure!’
However, I think not sending Christmas cards is a bit like committing murder – the first time is the hardest. Because these days when cards arrive, I read them and entertain warm thoughts about the sender (always assuming I remember them) and press on with my day… Happy Christmas everyone! *Because I still think fondly of my old friend and don’t want to hurt her, I have changed some details. Her little girl didn’t play the oboe. It was the clarinet. And she is a boy.
Not sending Christmas cards is a bit like committing murder – the first time is the hardest