HAVING A HAPPY CHRISTMAS
“Happy Christmas” has to be one of the most
over-used, yet under-utilised expressions in the English language. Aside from a
few short moments on Christmas morning watching the children open their
presents, the day itself is always fraught with stress and heightened emotion.
Having thought I was on the home-stretch by ensuring that the turkey fits in my
oven, and that I have a baking tray big enough to hold it, I will be
frantically searching the house for bits of leftover foil with which to cover
it. By mid morning I am topping and tailing sprouts and cursing my husband for
insisting we find a way of transforming these fiddly green knobs into something
that does not resemble cabbage for the one day of the year that he eats them. Having
spent three weeks arranging fronds of fresh holly and candles in our “good
room” – I am overcome with fear that one of the kids will smear the Mars Bar
from their 7am selection box on my once-a-year sofa. Instead of enjoying the
gift giving, I am glowering miserably at the piles of packaging and wrapping
paper fretting over the next recycling bin collection date. My husband always
buys me some wonderful trinket which makes the novelty mug and socks look even
more dreadful than they are, and the stress of the last few weeks trying to
make the perfect Christmas – sending cards to all the right people, buying
gifts for everyone, finding a dressy red cardigan and gathering advice from
Sunday supplements on what to do with those wretched sprouts, has fuelled me
with such wild expectation that the day itself somehow always disintegrates
into a toxic state of exhaustion and regret. By mid afternoon, I just want
everyone to go home so I can settle into the Big Movie (which I have invariably
seen already on my one cinema trip this year) and indulge my regretful
addiction to Quality Street.
This Christmas is going to be different however
because I am sick. I was diagnosed with a chronic disease back in September
and, while nobody actually wants a disease, the whole business of my body
stopping me in my tracks has caused me to reassess the more neurotic aspects of
my personality and get my priorities into line. Where previous Christmases have
been dominated by co-ordinating decorating schemes and scoring wild smoked salmon
for the starter – this year we’ll eat farmed salmon for a fiver from Lidl and I
couldn’t give a damn about the decorations. All I care about is the people I’ll
be with.
The truth is all the decorating, and cooking
and shopping and glittery table dressing is so often used as a distraction for
the main business of being with our family. Not the favourite sister, or the
adored children – but the extended family. The mother-in-law who makes better
gravy than you, the verbally incontinent uncle, the vegan cousin who has to be
especially catered for, the sibling you haven’t seen since last Christmas when
he got into a drunken fight with your husband after an argument playing Family
Fortunes.
“How to Survive Your Family this Christmas” is
in every popular women’s magazine, and people keep saying to me “it’s a
difficult time of the year.” But as I look out at the sea, for the first time I
can see the snow-settled mountains in Sligo melt into the skyline and I realise
that the gift this period of illness has given me is the time to reflect and
appreciate the life I have and, crucially the people I have left in it.
Christmas is a time when everyone tries to be
the best they can be. From going to their only mass this year, to putting on a
glitzy outfit just to sit in their own houses or trying to turn dry, dull
turkey meat into something magnificent. Not everyone gets it right, but it’s
the time of year when it’s worth remembering that everyone endeavours to be
their best selves, even if it is annoying or crass, even if they have to be
drunk to get through it. The message of Christmas – “goodwill to all men” – is
a challenge to tolerance and acceptance. At best, it’s a call to love. Not just
the people it is easy to love, our partners and children - but the old, the
difficult, the jaded, and the boorish – the ignorable relations. It’s not an
easy time, but then I have learned this year, life is not easy – and the only
thing we truly have in this life that is worth holding onto is people.
So instead of tolerating Christmas this year, I
am going to treasure it. Because in the holding of this annual Christian
tradition, society offers us the opportunity to share, not just the presents
and the food and the hospitality, but of ourselves and our human spirit. The
ability to be graciously outshined by our mother-in-law’s gravy, watch our
husbands guzzle back the sprouts and forget about the bickering and
disappointments of the other 364 days of the year because this day, this moment is all we truly have.
Midnight mass, usually an interruption to the
stuffing and peeling frenzy that is Christmas Eve, will take on a special
significance this year. An opportunity to get dressed up and meet our
neighbours in the village at a time when the pub seems overwhelmingly social.
While the “A La Carte Catholics” annual token trip can be a cause of irritation
for the faithful as they arrive early and hog all the good seats, there is
something solid and comforting about a community gathering to celebrate the
mystery and magic of Christmas together.
We never know what the next year will hold, but
on this one day, although our loved ones aren’t always with us in body, in
spirit at least we will gather around the same table and eat the same food –
and even if the brussel sprouts recipe has changed, there is always hope in the
magical routine of Christmas Day.
Happy Christmas from Killala, County Mayo.
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