Christmas Struggles
Some things make Christmas difficult for me, so I try to talk about it
I keep reading guides to having a happy and healthy Christmas, and I keep getting annoyed with them. The advice seems to boil down to: don't be poor. Don't be traumatised. Be in control of your life. Of course it's easier to have a happy and healthy Christmas if you already have those things in place.
I don't have a lot of good advice, but I do know a few of the traps that make Christmas very difficult for me. I share them here in the hopes that someone will feel heard.
The Shutdown
Christmas Day is a giant dead spot in the calendar. All the shops are shut, and no public transport runs for two days. This means that unless I can find a driver willing to give me a lift, wherever I am on Christmas Eve is where I'm stuck for the duration. If I want to socialise on Boxing Day, I have to spend Christmas Day in a hotel. On the other hand, if I forgo the socialising in favour of spending time with my family, I have no escape route when things get stressful. And either way I have to abandon the comfortable familiarity of home.
Food
I actually really like Christmas food, but I'm the only one of my family that does. Everyone else would rather stick with a roast chicken and a few pigs in blankets. And although in theory I could cook something more elaborate just for myself, recipes seem to assume you're cooking for at least eight, and there's no obvious way to either scale the recipe down or store the leftovers. I used to make a statement marmalade glazed gammon for Christmas tea, but I gave up because nobody else was interested in sharing it.
It's got even more frustrating since I started reducing the amount of red meat I eat. I arranged to have meatless "pigs in blankets" to cook alongside the traditional ones everyone else was having, and all it got me was snide remarks at the dinner table about how they couldn't possibly be as good as meat. It's saying a lot that my happiest Christmas meal in recent years was the one I ate alone in a hotel room.
Board Games
After several unpleasant incidents when I was younger, I really don't enjoy board games. Even in a friendly setting, they put me on edge. My ideal Christmas involves exactly zero board games.
My sibling and my teenager, on the other hand, love them. Every year my sibling brings a new board game, and although they can usually be played with only two players, my teenager insists it will be more fun if I join them. If I refuse, she pouts about my being no fun. If I reluctantly play, she will take that as evidence that I love board games really and have no reason not to play whenever she wants me to.
Giving Presents
I can recognise in myself the impulse to believe that the right present will smooth over all the problems in a relationship that have become obvious during the last year. Unfortunately that impulse clashes with the hard fact that anything I could afford to give as a present, the recipient could easily afford to get themselves, so that if they haven't got it yet, they probably don't want it all that much. I typically spend most of December racking my brains over what I should give, only to panic on the last shopping day before Christmas and buy something I can't really afford in the hopes of substituting money for thought.
I also get sucked into my teenager's gift giving. She likes to make homemade gifts, but she can never estimate the right amount of time to allow. So I'm called upon at 5pm on Christmas Eve to sew something together while she panics. I'm happy to help her out in her hour of need, but it's another source of stress that I could do without.
Getting Presents
From about November onwards, fully half of our family conversations are about what we would like for Christmas or what we think some third party might like for Christmas. My answer to both is, "I don't know." If I knew what other family members wanted, I wouldn't have the giving-related stress I just described, but I also don't have much idea what I'd like myself. The two things I most want couldn't be bought in a shop or put beneath the tree. I suppose I could ask for a tool I'd like, but what if that's out of the giver's price range?
My dad also has the habit of using his presents to send me passive aggressive messages. I don't always pick up on them, which helps me look grateful on Christmas morning, but it makes him more exasperated when I don't realise the single malt was supposed to tell me not to get drunk on cheap whisky, or the M&S voucher was a heavy hint to replace my socks before they wore through.
Ideal versus Reality
None of this is particularly terrible, apart from possibly the lack of transport. What makes it hard to stomach is the feeling that it should be better. Christmas should be a time of warmth and cosiness with those we love, of good food and thoughtful presents, of light and joy in the darkest bit of winter. In theory, it seems such a small thing to want; in practice it's so hard to achieve. And that for me is the biggest trap of all. If I could only stop wishing for more, I might manage to be happy.