For more than a decade, I’ve had a fractured relationship with the festive season. It was a time of year I used to love, especially when I worked in an office, appreciating the slower pace and eating liqueur chocolates at 10am, but the shine wore off.
When my late husband Rob was alive, he was in the chaotic throes of an active addiction. As anyone with loved ones who are addicts will know, Christmas is one of the worst, most isolating times of the year, not just because of their behaviour, but because of the disparity between all the twinkling lights and happy families shown on TV and your Instagram feed, and your own life.
We had one joyous Christmas during Rob’s last period of sobriety where we celebrated with my family at my parents’ home, watching the Doctor Who special and fighting over the last After Eight. But that was the last time we were all together – Rob passed away five months later.
Since then, I’ve been experimenting with what to do around that festive time of year. The first year after he died, I skipped Christmas altogether by taking myself to India where my extended family live, where Christmas isn’t really a thing. On the day itself, my parents and I went out for lunch, drank a lot of beer and after a long nap, watched Home Alone while eating cocktail sausages. We didn’t see any other family or acknowledge the day, and I felt relief at not having to feign jollity.
I’ve had years where I’ve spent it in New Zealand, where Rob’s family is from, and in England with my own family. What I’ve learned doesn’t work is trying to do Christmas the same way we did it when Rob was alive. He would always cook dinner, usually a roast leg of lamb with all the trimmings, and when we tried to recreate it I just felt sad.
But the Christmas I longed for didn’t really exist when he was alive, because I was permanently worried about whether he was using; if he would behave normally in front of my family. The Christmas we were trying to recreate after his death always felt like forced jollity, and by the end of the day I would feel like a fraud for pretending to feel something I knew I didn’t. The only reprieve was my little niece, whose joy and wonder around Christmas and Santa made the whole thing worth it.
This year, I decided to make Christmas a non-event by flying out to India on 25 December, to stay in my parent’s apartment which is sitting empty until they arrive a couple of days later. I planned to get some washing done, go to the gym and maybe order a pizza. The trip was booked ages ago, when I wasn’t feeling particularly inclined to be festive.
But something has happened in the past few weeks that has made me actually yearn for a traditional Christmas. I’m not sure if it’s being brainwashed by the Christmas messaging that began in UK supermarkets in August, the Christmas trees in the garden centre at the beginning of November, or the incredible lights in London this year, but I’m enjoying that feeling of festivity and experiencing slight regret at being away. Even if I do see family on the day, there is no big Christmas dinner, no tree and no Christmas TV programming unless I stream festive movies non-stop on Netflix.
Perhaps it’s because this feels like the first year I’m not “catching up” since the pandemic. I’m not mindlessly doing things that I couldn’t do during lockdown without questioning whether they are right for me anymore. Maybe it’s also because I don’t feel like I’m being forced into festive fun; rather than going to parties for the sake of it, I’ve been selective about who I want to spend my time with. That means that when I am in celebration mode, it doesn’t feel tiresome or forced.
I’ve got better at advocating for myself too. While many people find comfort in the rituals and traditions of the festive season, I sometimes find it suffocating and constricting. I’ve had to set expectations with my loved ones, so they know that just because I’m able to attend or do something one year, it does not mean I am locked into a life-long contract to do it every single year thereafter.
The space they have given me in being able to figure this stuff out has allowed me to rediscover some of my love for it. There is a middle ground between spending time with them and having my own space, as well as finding time to give back to my local communities or charities who need help when other people are busy with their families.
On the day itself, I will actually miss my family, and that need for human connection is everything, given that I didn’t think I would ever want that again, especially around this time of year.