Christmas can be a tricky holiday to get along with. There isn’t a single other day in the calendar so hell-bent on peddling unrealistic ideals and making us conform. And few of us manage to escape its influence.
This year, I’m not ticking many boxes. A partner to buy presents for – I don’t have one. A year of successes to reflect upon – can’t say I’ve achieved that much. And a table in my own home waiting to welcome family and friends – I don’t have one of those either.
Christmas Day demands something none of us can consistently deliver on, so we need to stop being so hard on ourselves. After all, who really has all of the above, every year? Nuclear families have been in decline since the 1960s; there’ll be vegetarians around the table who won’t eat turkey; families grieving lost ones; some of us suffering from mental health problems; and some of us just tired and exhausted by the demands of everyday life. And added to that, it hardly ever snows: we had only seven official white Christmases in the entire 20th century.
Every year we’re given the following tasks to complete: buy wonderful presents even though we’ve no extra income; receive invitations to parties, go to them and have a ball at every one; surround ourselves with people we love and who love us back; enjoy, ironically when required, mediocre entertainment; overindulge but look good in photos; and, most importantly, tell everyone who asks that you had a great time.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible to genuinely enjoy Christmas. And sometimes I do. But I’d rather it didn’t depend on meeting so many of those requirements.
Christmas is a bit of a bully. It’s like the guest who rocks up to your party already drunk, forces everyone to do shots, repeats stories with dated punchlines, and makes those who don’t laugh along the butt of its next joke. But the thing is, it’ll be around again next year with its garishness, sentimentality and terrible music.
When I think back, I realise I stopped enjoying Christmas when I stopped believing in Santa Claus. This was when I heard my parents, newly married, arguing while carrying my presents to the tree. It was the night I heard my mum crying because she thought she couldn’t give her family a good enough Christmas. I’m sure this is the reality for many other people too: mounting levels of pressure to meet the demands of a day that makes all of us feel inadequate and guilty. Like my mum, we just want the people around us to have a good time. But with the worry and stress, whose perfect Christmas is this? Not mine.
Christmas is essentially asking us to put a brave face on the entire year, and since 1 December I’ve been worrying about how I’ll perform. For every advent calendar door that opens, I see another option for how I might choose to live my life closing. On Christmas Eve, I’ll travel back home to a town that I was once desperate to escape. I’ll hang out with my mum, my stepdad and my half sister, whom I love very much. I’m lucky in this way. It’s not that my family and I don’t care about each other, we really do.
But there’ll be moments during the festive period when we’d all probably like a break from each other. We won’t see any of our extended family because, like a lot of families, we don’t get along. I’ll sit at the table on Christmas Day, anxious and wearing a party hat. I’ll drink less than usual, because alcohol and the raft of family issues hiding under the carpet don’t mix well.
All four of the Fishwicks will feel the pressure to be jolly. As in many other families, each of us will be having our own internal conversation about how something didn’t go right this year, how we aren’t meeting expectations, or how we aren’t performing well enough. Will the three of them be able to see that I’ve had a really tough year? That, if given the choice, I’d probably rather just have a good lie down?
For years campaigners have fought hard, and continue to fight, for personal freedoms so that we can all live a life that suits us. Why is it then that, for this one day, we’re so easily beaten back into conforming to such narrow ideals? Perhaps we’re all too drunk on eggnog to care.
Yes, it’s great that some of us will get the chance to spend time with people we don’t see enough of: feeling connected is essential for all human beings. But the prescriptive nature of Christmas is a real problem.
In its current form, Christmas makes many of us feel utterly depressed. It’s time we spoke more openly about it rather than deceiving ourselves. We are being bullied by a day that refuses to get with the times.
