Have you seen Four Christmases, dear friends?
You must. The movie itself is good – Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, both adorable as usual but the premise of the movie is to what I’m referring; the idea of skipping Christmas. Absolutely brilliant.
(Gasp) This, coming from the girl who prattles on about the lights & the food & the songs & the very essence of Christmas? Surely you must have read wrong?
No. You didn’t. The difference is this: I do very much love the season of Christmas – all the time leading up to it… I just dread the actual day. (How sacrilege, right, the birth of Jesus and all. But back up off me, everyone knows He was actually born in April.)
I envy children and their innocent excitement and anticipation, the magic and joy of the morning…
But I am a grown up (sort of – sigh) and a) Santa isn’t coming for me and b) the anticipation, instead of for ‘magic’ is instead for ‘how to please everyone’.
I remember far too well the business of carting Piglet round, trying to make sure everyone got time with her but probably pleasing no one as a result of rushing through things, and then feeling both guilty about that and upset with myself for not just staying put and telling everyone if they wanted to see her they could come to our place. (oh, to have a set of balls…)
Enter Year of the Separation. (that word is now tainted forever for me. Boo.) Just thinking of sharing and shuffling Piglet to and fro & trying to be fair to friends & family alike while attempting to keep some semblance of happiness makes me want to flush myself down the toilet.
And so, I’ve thought long and hard about this. For months actually, even as far back as last year when BD and I knew we were over I’ve been imagining what this would look like.
Such endless musing has led me to wonder what the actual percentage is of people who actually enjoy Christmas day. Book after book and movie after movie have been written about it – some humourous anecdote or another highlighting the miseries, agonies & anxieties of family, the drunk uncle, the bitch sister, the meddling mother the perverted grandfather & the crazy brother. And the gifts – Oh gahd. Tie rack, anyone? Foam cowboy hat? Bunny slippers? Handmade-something-awful? You lose either way – you either get some junket crap you don’t want or your carefully-thought-out-gifts don’t land.
And the dinners; the luncheons, the breakfasts and the brunches. What are the chances 10-20 people at any such gathering are all going to get along, or even like each other? Enter the real Christmas Angels; rum & eggnog. Beer & wine. Spiced whatever. Liquor sales soar during the holidays, and it’s no surprise why.
Isn’t it just so sad that a time reserved for family & get togethers is so widely dreaded by the masses? Thank God for collective misery, masquerading as humour. Ho f*cking ho.
And so, after careful consideration… I’ve decided to… skip it. Reign in that judgment, please, and hear me out.
I’ll be the first to say what a great dad BD is. I knew in marrying him that he’d be an active and involved dad, that his children would be lucky to have him as their father.
His family loves her too, and a whole heap of them get together for Christmas day, and it would be wonderful for both them and Piglet to have that time together, and… for the sake of my daughter… I feel I should bow out gracefully.
Of course, my own mother and brother love her immeasurably too, and isn’t it fair that they get some time too? Well yes, it would be… but as I said before, the thought of all this sharing and shuffling makes me want to take a long walk off a short pier, and – Piglet is only two years old. She loves saying Santa and Snowman but really doesn’t get it. Every other Christmas, for the rest of her life, she will; and I’ll have it no other way than to be a huge part of it. But this year… I’m really struggling, still, with getting over everything, (obviously) and I seem to need some sort of – escape – to really move on. I’m in a transitional period; I’m not where I wanted or hoped to be; and childish as it may sound, I just want to run away and deal with all the hoohahs of this calendar year by myself.
And so I’m working. I will drop Piglet off with BD on the 24th and pick her up on the 26th (though hoping he’ll do the nicety of dropping her off as I’ll have worked the redeye in). I know he and his family will be so happy to have her, and she’ll be showered with love and attention…
So I’m trying to feel good about this decision. I just wish my own mumsy had something on the haps; I feel horrid, terrible, for leaving her… after she’s been so good to me. She deserves better than a shit daughter like me.
The high road, then? Or just the cowardly road? I’ll tell you one thing. I’m already planning for next year; I’m planning and booking a flight to Sand & Sunshine for me and Piglet from before to after this bloody dreaded day. I can’t take this heartache again.
But let’s part on a happy note: Santa has the right idea. Visit people but once a year. ;)
