“Christmas can be a blessing and a curse,” says Sally. When they had little money they just stayed at home playing Trivial Pursuit, watching the Christmas movie, letting Granddad snore off his pudding and, if the weather was good, having a brisk walk in new hats and gloves. Now it’s different. “We’ve decided to run away.”
Christmas makes her sad, nostalgic for a time past when she was the hub of the family in her Father Christmas hat, cooking the turkey.
The kids are refusing to commit this year: one is probably going to be snowboarding with mates; another wants to be in London with her boyfriend; and the third, still at university, is moaning they don’t want to be home alone, so they’ll probably take the offer of extra money at the pub and work Christmas Day. Sadly, Granddad is dead.
Sally says it will be awful just staring at a far-too-big turkey remembering the fun of Christmases past.
So they are not going to be home for Christmas for the first time in their marriage. They could, of course, go to family or link up with friends. But worse she feels, having to fit into others traditions and watch them be with their kids and older relations when she can’t. So they are going to disappear.
“What happens if you spend all that money going on a cruise, or off searching for sun and get homesick?” I ask. “Oh, we thought of that… We’re not going far, we’ve booked ourselves in a country hotel five miles away, they do all the cooking, it’s luxurious and it will be full of sad sods like ourselves.”
There is always some sadness about Christmas, memories of those not there, of wanting it to be a perfect, unchanging day, of homesickness.
I remember my first year away from home teaching EFL in Spain. I’d travelled back the 24 hours on the train to find a house full of strangers. My mother, convinced I would not make it, had decided to invite six international students from the nearby men’s teacher training college. She’d got to know them through the local church.
She told me presents had been cancelled as they had no money and she didn’t want to embarrass them. They arrived stiffly attired in suits: conversation painfully polite as they picked at the turkey and brussel sprouts. She’d forgotten to ask if they were vegetarians, but knew they were tee-totallers, so she served no wine.
Our usual game of Chase the Ace was abandoned: she wasn’t sure they approved of gambling. We tried charades but, understandably, they had never heard of any of the films or books. As they left, they bowed and presented us with six immaculately wrapped gifts. We waited until we had wine and Roses’ chocolates in front of the fire and, giggling uncontrollably, unwrapped them.
They were all expensive leather-bound bibles. I can still hear our silence and feel our shame…
