Is Christmas really the most wonderful time of the year? In terms of the things that really matter in my life, which is family, the answer is an unqualified yes. Our children are grown up and independent but when they come home for Christmas, or at least part of it, there is nowhere I’d rather be. I have a bucket list of places I want to visit but if someone offered me the ultimate, no expense spared, holiday in the Maldives at Christmas, which meant being away from my family, turning it down would be the easiest decision in the world. The Maldives can wait, if necessary, forever.
Sometimes I think and dream about the Christmas past. My Christmases were not exactly joyless, but they weren’t particularly spectacular, either. My stock of socks would be replenished, replacing the darned-to-death-falling-to-pieces socks that could now be thrown in the silver dustbin, along with the ashes from the coal fire (hence the name ‘ash bin’), an LP by perhaps the Beatles or the Monkees, a Beano annual and a cheque from my Canadian-dwelling father.
Christmas dinner would be me, my mum and from around 1.00 pm, my paternal grandparents, who would arrive in grandad’s Triumph Herald for an afternoon of unidentified meat, roast potatoes and peas, followed always by jelly and cream. I had no idea of the types of meat that were available at the time and we certainly had nothing as luxurious as turkey or chicken, not that we ever ate either at any time of year, never mind Christmas. Gran and grandad would fall asleep after dinner, mum would wash up, I’d read my Beano annual, while our tiny black and white TV hummed and crackled in the corner of the room.
My memories of childhood are sketchy at best, and non existent at worst, but I do remember what would have been Christmas 1966 when my main present was the first LP by The Monkees, called, believe it or not, The Monkees. After dinner, I slipped into the freezing, always unheated front room and played it over and over again. It was my second best present ever, better ever, albeit a very distant second to the train set by dad bought me in some year or other before that. I soon knew all the words and my first music hero had emerged, woolhatted guitar player Mike Nesmith. I don’t recall spending a Christmas with my dad, although I probably did when I was very young and somehow I didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual about that. While friends and neighbours were gathering in hordes, it was the four of us every year. Maybe it’s true and what you don’t have you don’t miss, at least not at the time. Quietly, subconsciously, I knew that family mattered more than anything and being with family was as important as life itself. Without my partner, without my family, I am nothing.
My children are older now, not really children at all, making their own way in life, making their own decisions, usually far better decisions than I ever made. I would like to think the mess I made of my own life helped me steer them in a better direction. If I have, then maybe everything that went before was worthwhile.
The poverty of my childhood is but a memory today, albeit a fierce and, frankly, unhappy memory. My grandparents had an outside toilet and no bathroom at all, yet at the time I never once thought there was anything unusual about, Maybe there wasn’t? Even visiting the houses of the few friends my mum my grandparents had, the presence of bathrooms and inside toilets did not lead me to think: well, this is odd. Gran and Grandad haven’t got either of these. Boxing Day was at theirs and it was a virtual repeat of Christmas Day, but without new socks.
These days Christmas is very different. No longer are we scratching around for cheap meats, the main presents are no longer socks and underpants, long gone is the tiny black and white TV and the house is usually warm. But there is one thing that never changes and that’s the love of family.
My older relatives, with the exception of my stepmother, are all long dead, but my partner’s family are mostly alive and kicking. My half brothers, their partners and children live in Canada, as does my stepmother, and that’s the real downer for me. There is always Zoom, which is a lot better than nothing, but it’s still short of being together. It reminds me, not that I need reminding, why being with family is the most important thing in my world. I am not saying it should be the most important thing in your world because I am not you and you are not me and what I need in my life maybe isn’t what you need. I don’t mean to somehow my love for my family is greater than yours for yours because that won’t be true.
My past has often led me to enjoying and often preferring solitude to company. That even applies at Christmas because I am what I have become due to circumstance. But the love and crucially presence of family, well that goes deeper than anything I know and have ever known. Trust me, I know just how lucky I am.
Anytime I am with my family is the best time of the year. Christmas means nothing to me in the religious sense but it does mean love and togetherness. That, I believe, is what makes it special. And on that basis, the most wonderful time of the year.
For Christmas 2024 and for all Christmases to come, The Maldives can wait.
