No Xmas party to cap a year we won’t forget

IT’S my birthday next week. I know, I know. I can’t believe I’m 25 either. Ahem. Given the latest restrictions, this year’s celebrations will, naturally, be a low-key affair. That’s fine with me. I had a big do a few years back for an alarmingly big number, with two parties in two countries and lashings of fizz, friends and fun.

This year I’m happy to make do with a takeaway and the latest crime documentary on Netflix. Who says life in your forties isn’t glamorous?

But oh, how I feel for those, particularly at the younger and older ends of the age spectrum, who will miss out this year.

No fun turning 18 in the year of coronavirus. No big multi-generational family celebration for those who’ve made it all the way to 80 during a global pandemic.

Everywhere I turn I hear about celebrations stymied by the latest restrictions. The 13-year-old who has been rigorous with social distancing all through lockdown and had been planning a sleepover with five friends next week as a birthday treat.

The 90-year-old great-grandmother who was to have a family bash with rarely seen loved ones and will now have to make do with just a couple of familiar faces.

Then there was the friend who thought she was being clever by planning a birthday trip for her toddler with family to a country park. Now, thanks to the restrictions, the guest list has been slashed.

And don’t get me started on the heartbreaking image of Kate Garraway, toasting her 15th wedding anniversary to her husband Derek Draper, who has been gravely ill in hospital with coronavirus since March, over FaceTime, after being told she would be unable to visit him on the day due to recent changes.

Birthdays and anniversaries are markers in our lives. Immovable feasts, they chart our passage through the years like key points on a map. Yet this year they are, like so many things, being stripped from us.

I still remember with crystal-like clarity my fifth birthday party, when the sun shone gloriously and we played British Bulldogs on the lawn, where there was cake and scones and Wotsits for tea and a boy named Alastair fell through a chair that was too big for him. And my parent’s golden wedding anniversary, with a piper and speeches and so much whisky and laughter I still had a stitch (and a headache) two days later.

What memories are we being robbed of, in this year when no celebrations can take place? For children in particular, for whom birthdays are such markers of childhood, and who know, even at a young age, that such days are irreplaceable?

YES, my fiancé and I had to cancel our wedding this summer, but strangely I don’t feel cheated as much as those who have had to cancel, say, their golden wedding celebrations.

We are lucky enough to get a second chance. A do over. What it will look like I’ve no idea. But still, we know that one day our wedding will happen, and it will be special, and it will be ours. There’s no second time around for a 50th anniversary.

What impact will all this have on us? I wish I knew. In April, when the Queen movingly invoked the words of Vera Lynn – we’ll meet again – we could, and did, hold on to them. Though the situation seemed bleak, there was a glimmer of hope for the future.

Now though, as cases go up and restrictions tighten, the bleakness is back. This time, however, there seems to be no light winking at us from the end of the tunnel. We cannot meet in groups of more than six, and even then, only from two households. Yes, you can still go out to eat but the numbers stay the same and you’ll have to wear your mask if you need to pop to the loo.

And now Christmas, that most significant marker of them all, is under threat. Christmas, when families come together, to create memories both good and bad, to drink too much sherry and eat four types of potatoes, when we stay up too late recalling festive periods gone by. Even that may end up being a shadow of its former self.

I wish I could say it will all be OK. I wish I could say things will get better, when what I really suspect is that until we get a vaccine, little will change. But what I can say is this. If 2020 has shown us anything, it is that we humans are more resilient, and adaptable, than we ever thought possible. No big family birthday party this year? Get great-grandma on Zoom and order in a cake from M&S. No sleepover with friends? FaceTime and TikTok will help fill the gap.

And if ever there was a year to rearrange, to put it all back a year, then this is it. Just look at the Olympic Games. They might not be being held until July 2021 now, but that hasn’t stopped them calling it Tokyo 2020.

And one last thing. For all those who have lost out this year with birthdays, anniversaries and other should-have-been celebrations, one thing is undoubtedly clear: this year will be one they will never forget.