‘As the years have gone on, Mum and I have exchanged roles’ ‘I still can’t compete with her Yorkshire puddings’
Stepping up to take the place of her parents and continue much-loved family Christmas traditions is the new normal for Milly Johnson.
There are three generations of my family in my kitchen ready to eat. Swing Christmas music is belting out of the speakers. I’m distributing veg, trying to remember who doesn’t want sprouts. It’s in keeping with the tradition of every Christmas I’ve ever had, except now it’s me who has single-handedly cooked lunch and Mum is waiting to be served, whereas once it was all the other way round. And there’s an empty chair where Dad once sat. He was always in charge of music and carving the roast, a duty that has fallen to my partner. These are tweaks time has forced upon us, but I hold as true as I can to our beloved template of Christmas.
Being a so-called ‘sandwich woman’ (having both aged parents and teenage
children)
is hard, but if ever a time has made us appreciate that generations of our family are still here, it’s this one, surviving the pandemic. So, this Christmas, in my house in Barnsley, there will be my partner of nine years, Pete; my two sons, Terence, 23, and George, 22; and Mum, Jenny, who will be 90 in March.
Mum can no longer get to the shops, so I have to buy Christmas cards for her based on her instructions: ‘Classy. Don’t forget it has to say Special Friend on the front.’ Then I have to write them and post or hand deliver them.
It’s the same with Christmas presents. ‘What would the lads like?’ she’ll ask, determined to buy my sons something memorable. ‘Please tell her cash is fine,’ they’ll say. ‘Don’t tell me they want cash,’ Mum will argue.
I feel like a ball being passed over a net between Nadal and Federer!
As the years have gone on, my mum and I somehow exchanged roles. Mum always made the Christmas dinner.
I still can’t compete with her Yorkshire puddings. Dad always had mushy peas with turkey. Even though he died two years ago, the mushy peas still make it to the Christmas table. My own memories of early Christmases are flavoured with Nana’s mince pies and Dad hooting at Morecambe and Wise. I’ve tried my best to recreate the magic for my own sons.
Mum is frail now, but we have a lot of secret scaffolding in place to create the illusion she is more independent than she really is. That’s important for us both, as I don’t want to be the one ‘in charge’; she is still the matriarch, not me. I’ve had to learn not to correct her when she remembers a different truth to how it was.
And yet, somehow on Christmas Day, when we are all sitting around the table, it is how it should be in a perfect world. What unites us all is our love for one another as a family. We do not want to dwell on how many more times we will be here together; we just want to enjoy this one and preserve it in our memories. • The Woman In The Middle (Simon & Schuster) by Milly Johnson is out now