Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, except the men of a certain vintage who still leave it until 5pm on December 24th to fling themselves into a pharmacy, frantically scanning the shelves for Hampers for Women. The women in question already own two foot spas and more Body Shop soaps than they know what to do with. This Christmas my wish for these women is that the hampers will at least contain a luxurious and useful shower gel and not another bottle of bubble bath, which might be nice if only they had a bath.
I once worked in a city centre branch of Golden Discs on Christmas Eve, and as the minutes ticked closer to closing time and the streets began to empty, men continued to burst in and try to buy the shop fittings, wild-eyed and determined to gift a pricing gun to a loved one the following morning. Men being useless is a Christmas trope I enjoy. Yes, of course I know it’s Not All Men, but there are enough of them right this moment pressing €50 notes into the hands of jewellery shop staff begging with them to choose a necklace, I can imagine them fondly and hope they ask for a gift receipt.
I love thinking about those Christmas traditions. Not the usual ones with the matching pyjamas or the gathering of old friends in the pub, but the ones that aren’t quite as rosy or cosy. The ones that prop the rosy and cosy up. The 20-something who arrives in the door at 4pm with a bag full of dirty washing, looking for a Baileys in her hand and with not one present wrapped. Her mother grits her teeth for the first time when she asks her if she has any spare wrapping paper and then again five minutes later when she has the hand out for the Sellotape and scissors. The mother reminds herself that she often wishes her daughter would come home more often, and isn’t she lucky she’s still amenable to sleeping in her old single bed surrounded by the items the house doesn’t need but can’t let go of – the exercise bike, a box of old schoolbooks, a leaf blower from the middle aisle at Lidl. As long as she keeps coming home, her mother will keep buying extra wrapping paper. It’s tradition.
We’re tricked into thinking everything must be perfect and everyone must get along and be together at all costs, but that’s so far from reality for so many people
Last year I started my own unusual Christmas tradition. For the first time in my life I wasn’t travelling home to spend Christmas Eve in my own childhood bed. I was worried there would be no magical feeling or special memories of watching Santa’s sleigh zoom across the sky as my brother pointed out the front room window. I worried that I was letting my dad down by not being at home for Christmas. He died in 2008 but had always lit a candle on Christmas Eve “to guide the lost souls home”. If I wasn’t in our house to guide him home with a candle, would he stay lost?
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I busied myself by visiting some friends for mince pies and a Christmas film with the children, soaking up their excitement about the Big Man’s imminent arrival. I returned home, put on some new pyjamas, heated up some more mince pies and watched another film. Not Home Alone or The Family Stone or one of my festive favourites but Midsommar, the often brutal and very surreal psychological horror set in Sweden in June. It was perfect. I was cosy, the tree was blinking and I had a glorious peaceful Christmas morning to look forward to with none of the Midsummer horrors to worry about. I lit a candle for my dad to guide a bit of him to my home, and my new tradition was born.
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For some people it’s not Christmas until they’ve queued for two hours for cheese. For others it’s not Christmas until the dog eats a vital dinner component and pukes it back up right under the tree. I always loved the grim documentation of Adrian Mole’s Christmases in the Sue Townsend books; tales of his mother trying once again to defrost the turkey in the bath, and his father belligerently drunk by noon.
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We’re tricked into thinking everything must be perfect and everyone must get along and be together at all costs, but that’s so far from reality for so many people. Whatever it is that makes your Christmas special or at least unique to you, whether it’s humouring your father in trying to find out where that draft is coming from, tolerating trying in-laws, hoofing across the country with children in tow to keep everyone happy or spending the day alone with the telly and a box of Chocolate Kimberleys, I hope you find a Midsommar moment and light a candle for yourself. Maybe buy yourself a foot spa. They never go out of style.