Every Christmas, I miss my dad. This year, it is especially painful because last month I hit 60, which was the age he was when he died in January 1990.
I had the best birthday, surrounded by family and friends, and I am so blessed in having a life rich in friendship, kindness and incredible love. In my numerous celebrations, it was as if all my Christmases had come at once, and the fun and laughter on both sides of the Atlantic (the Pacific end is yet to come) moved me to many tears - of immense joy.
But for me, Christmas is now always tinged with sadness, remembering the people who are no longer here to enjoy it. On Friday, my best friend from school, Shelley, would also have been celebrating her 60th birthday. I imagine what reminiscences we might have shared, as we did so often, even though time and continents separated us. She died in August 2017 and I regularly read our Facebook exchanges and the many diary entries I made throughout our school years.
I had the most joyous childhood Christmases. I can still smell the Play-Doh and see the marble necklaces I made by mixing the colours from different pots together. I remember the thrill in the transfer of ink to page in my John Bull printing set; the flow of lines on Etch-a-Sketch and Spirograph; the excitement of the cage coming down and the cry of “Mouse Trap!” in the helter-skelter of red and yellow plastic that was the best board game ever.
I remember Dad’s socks - one each for my brother Nigel and me - and the tangerine and walnuts hidden in the toes; the saucer of milk we put out for the reindeer on Christmas Eve, when, before going to bed, we were allowed to choose just one present to open from our stash. And the dark, slow, quiet night. Oh, that awful, interminable darkness and silence of Christmas morning, when my Nigel and I would cough loudly outside our parents’ bedroom door, willing them to wake.
You knew you were getting older when the presents began to change in nature - that sorry day when you started to get clothes instead of shiny plastic; the three lemon-shaped soaps that turned up every year and never got used; the wands of coloured bath oils that were always the last thing to be opened, their jewelled exterior never managing to hide the fact that the Scalextric you really wanted hadn’t materialised yet again (just me, then?).
Dinner was always a spectacular affair. Mum made her own pudding and cake, and apart from the year she left the tea-cloth used to wipe out the turkey actually in its belly during cooking, everything always went off without a hitch (actually, I think I recall a time when Dad, whose task it was to turn the oven on, forgot).
Of course, one can never recapture the joys of a childhood Christmas, but I am lucky to have had so many of them. It’s a time of the year that inevitably changes with age; most of my friends have children and are now enjoying grand-children, thereby getting to re-experience the delight in their excited faces. With the exception of buying for my mother and her for me, there are no presents anymore, which is just as well, as I wouldn’t have any room for them. I prefer to spend money on meals and drinks and enjoying good company.
A few days ago, my comments about wanting Christmas to be over attracted considerable antagonism on Facebook. It felt like Brexit Revisited - no one being allowed to voice an opinion without the risk of entering into full scale battle.
I don’t enjoy Christmas anymore. It’s the busiest time of year for me with work. in 2016, I was hospitalised in December and had a 48 hour nose bleed - a burst blood vessel owing to stress. Last year, following my mother’s fall, I also went flying when running to her house. I cracked two ribs and was incapacitated the entire holiday, although provided with ample food and drink sustenance from the very generous Debbie and Theo Paphitis (I’m thinking of breaking another couple of ribs over the weekend).
I find Christmas songs infinitely depressing, and if Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, a razor blade and I happen to be in the same room together at any point, start ordering wreaths for my funeral.
I can’t bear the loud music, balloons and drunkenness in bars; the overcrowded roads and trains; the really bad TV, because all the companies are saving up their best stuff for the New Year.
And don’t even get me started on New Year’s Eve, easily my most hated day of the year.
I’m actually very happy to be spending a quiet time at home and ignoring it all. I don’t even have a tree. What’s the point? You only have to take it down again.
Now, where’s that corkscrew?
