NOT READY FOR CHRISTMAS

Well, at least that’s over with for another year.

“Oh, here we go again with the ‘Bah Humbug!’ bit” I can almost hear you mutter to yourselves and you’d probably be right. Sadly, for me, this really isn’t “the most wonderful time of the year” as the crooners might have us believe. It’s fair enough, I suppose. I’m not unduly unhappy that everyone else always seems to be having a fine old time of it, but, personally, I’ve always found the festivities a bit of an old chore.

But before you all laugh and point and call me a right old Mr Miseryguts, perhaps I should try to explain. For whatever reasons, historically speaking, in our particular brood, this time of year has always been fraught with stress and woefulness on an emotional level brought on by something we like to think of as “an unrealistic level of expectation” and which manifested itself, even when I was a very small potato indeed, by far too many of us going along with what somebody else expected us to do instead of digging in our collective heels and saying a resounding and guilt-free “no” and running the risk of the veritable floods of consequential waterworks, wailing and gnashing of teeth, lamentation and woe of the level of an extreme Hollywood melodrama that would no doubt have ensued.

Better, it seemed, for the many to endure abject torture than for the one to possibly get upset at not getting their own way. Miserably we would pack up the household and put ourselves through days of relocated misery and tension in order to give the Drama Queen and her Hammond Organ playing Consort the affirmation of personal greatness which they did not deserve in order to keep that intangible nothing that we used to call “the peace”.

This way of thinking has been passed on down through the generations so that, despite much in the way of reduction of circumstances and available players in this annual Danse Macabre, until recently, supreme efforts were made to keep everything “normal” and “traditional” in the face of considerable odds and despite the main cast seeming to gain little actual joy from the actual event as it inevitably unfurled once more.

But every year we would dance this merry dance and jump through the hoops and tiptoe across the eggshells and go away from it bearing yet more of the deep scars it left upon our very souls whilst trying to convince ourselves that we had been “happy” (whatever that is…), and wait for the next one to roll around to hit the same beats, and go through all the very same motions once again. As this time of year ticked ever closer with the inevitability of a particularly bloody “High Noon” I would find myself getting ever more tense as the bitterness and resentment began to bubble up inside me, and, as I got older, I came to view this time of year with a particularly gnawing sense of absolute dread.

This, of course, to all the happy, bunny-headed folk that always seem to appear around me when I mutter such heresies, might very well manifest itself as me being a “grumpy old sod”, a “Mr Scrooge” or a “Grinch” dependent upon which literary influence they happened to gravitate towards, but it is sometimes very difficult to explain your lack of yuletide spirit when the entire season can have you screaming inside, especially when all those around you seem to inexplicably find something to actually look forward to amidst all their own familial minefields. Many is the time when I have truly wondered whether, and I know that very few people seem able to understand this, that if there were some kind of pill I could take to make December just go away, I would willingly take one. There is just something about this time of year that genuinely seems to trigger a spiral of despair and depression in me that sometimes makes me think like that. Each and every year, I try to explain this, and each and every year, very few seem to understand it, no matter how hard I try, and tales of other Christmases, for other, happier folk, grate enough to leave me feeling raw and disappointed with my own lack of grace, charm and munificence. Somehow all of this unremitting joy can only bring your own heart of darkness into sharper relief and remind you that the self-loathing that you harbour is really just bubbling beneath a very thin skin.

In my head, Christmas time does still remain a special thing. I can see myself leaning against the fireplace in my smoking jacket, perhaps poking at the burning logs with a steel poker, whilst exchanging witty banter with my guests over a cup of warm punch as we anticipate the fine and hearty meal that is being signalled by the excellent cooking smells that are drifting from the somewhere in the dark depths of the east wing of Blogfordshire Towers.

Outside a foot or more of snow is crisply carpeting the surrounding fields and robins and small furry animals can be seen darting about beyond the frosty window panes, whilst we sit inside all snug and cosy and warm amongst the oak panelling and the scent of pine is in the air from the Christmas tree I cut down myself from the small forest that grows in the grounds.

In my head, that’s what Christmas would be like if it were an ideal world. I hear people talk of the Christmases that they have had and I can only sit here envious at the ease and the retained sense of wonder that they somehow seem to breeze through it with. Instead, however, it must be endured, and more often than not, and despite the fact that it is pretty much the only absolute one hundred percent certainty of the calendar year, somehow it still always manages to take me somewhat by surprise.

For quite a few years now, I’ve genuinely accepted that I’m usually just about emotionally ready for Christmas in February, which is rather sad, if truth be told, because by then very few of the shops seem to have it much in mind. Although, to be fair, unless everyone was doing it, I imagine trying to organise a festive event in February might prove more than difficult anyway, although, under those circumstances, I suspect that I might very well like it more.

Somehow, instead, Christmas Eve arrives when it usually does, and, once again, the spirit, or the much-advertised “Christmas Miracle” fails to turn up with it and once more there remains far too much to do, and far too little already done, and most of what has been done was done far, far too late to be of any useful consequence.

Ironically, last year, because of circumstances, I did end up unwrapping a few parcels in February and, to be honest, that somehow failed to raise any sense of “magic” either. Perhaps it never will, and, I suppose, if the whole wretched business were time-shifted a couple of months for everyone, I would probably feel no better about it as I’d still end up starting my own pitiful and meagre list of necessary preparations far too late again. Perhaps my reluctance to get things organised sooner is a manifestation of my hope that, if I ignore it, the whole sorry business will just go away instead, although that is never likely to happen, is it?

Humbug anyone…?