LOST CHRISTMAS

Much like last year, there will be no* Christmas decorations adorning Blogfordshire Towers this year. Oh, we've put the few cards we've received (for which, many thanks --- although I don't appear to have got around to writing any of mine as yet…) on the card holder that always hangs in the living room, and bought each other a few "token" gifts, but that's really just about it for us.

There's no tree, no tinsel, no wreaths or baubles, and the decorations that we do have (because we do have some - although we've donated the various trees we had to the Beloved's office decoration squadron) are remaining firmly stowed in their boxes this time around.

It may seem odd, or sad, or just downright bloody miserable to you, but we somehow seem to have just lost the will to be bothered with it all, to be frank with you.

And it's not as if there are children to be amused, or guests to delight, so sticking up a few gaudy bits of tinsel just seems a little bit pointless when all that you have to do is find the motivation to take them all down again a few days later.

And it's all felt very odd this year anyway. It's as if we are aware that Christmas is happening, but somehow it just feels as if it's happening to other people, and in a very half-hearted way, and in about three month's time…

We've walked around the supermarkets, we've heard Slade blasting out over the tannoy systems, and seen all of those bizarre and obscure foodstuffs that people only seem to crave - and then, suddenly and bizarrely, in vast quantities - once a year, but somehow it's all failed to sink in, and, if I hadn't made a real effort to head off upstairs and get those few tokens wrapped and transmitted up to North Pole Central for distribution, a round trip that seems ever more wasteful in terms of Air Miles and Environmental Impact each year, I suspect that even that might never have got around to having happened.

And yet, if you're like me (and so few of you appear to be), you do find yourself pondering upon the madness of people and the ridiculous pressures that we put upon ourselves to have everything that it is humanly possible to have available and preferably within arm's reach for the one entire day that the shops will be closed, just in case Uncle Albert (other Uncles are available) reaches out and finds that his favourite drink or nibble isn't there, and his entire Christmas will be "RUINED, I TELL YOU, COMPLETELY RUINED!!!!" if he has to have a Hula Hoop instead of a Twiglet, or a Whisky instead of a Bourbon.

But people, other people, have different reasons to do such things than I do, and the multiples of heaped trolleys that you see crossing the car parks of the supermarkets imply "house fulls" that I have never experienced, and three-day binges that really will consume all of those cases of lager, no matter how unlikely that might at first seem to an outsider.

'Tis the season of plenty and excess, but that's no longer a game that I want to play.

There are other reasons, of course. Last year it all just seemed far too hard, and sometimes all of the news in the world just seems far, far too sad, and this year, in our post-S.U.R.A. "trying to get our act together" phase, we've pretty much stripped the living room down to nothing and scrubbed and dusted the hell out of the place, but this has taken so long that we're frankly far too exhausted to go around tatting the whole place up again.

It's always felt like a difficult time of the year for me anyway, and I've rarely come away from it without at least a touch of depression and a vague sense of disappointment. Somehow the sense of anticipation that was attempted to be bludgeoned into me as a child never quite managed to materialise on the day itself as we awkwardly played life's chess game whilst trying not to upset the wrong person at the wrong moment.

I do have a strange relationship with Christmas anyway; For years I really tried to make the effort, but somehow it really seemed as if the world really didn't care if I did or I didn't as it went about its own business obliviously.

I tried to "have the people over", or "do the things you ought to do", or even, in more recent times, "write a nice story in 25 parts for people to enjoy" and so forth, but, in the end, I still spent more Christmases all alone than the Seasons Greetings implied that I ought to be doing.

When I was younger, it was different, of course, but not really all that different, because we're all still alone with our thoughts and surrounded by people who also want to be doing what they want to be doing, and the sense of duty, or obligation, or just not wanting to upset the applecart, sometimes mean that you tolerate the wishes of everyone else without really giving all that much thought to what you would like to be doing yourself.

"Don't put the telly on whilst we're eating…", "Couldn't you play with that tomorrow instead…?", "We need to visit Auntie Mabel..." (other Aunties are available), "No, put the toys down, it's time to go to church…", "Could you pick me up later, only I've got something else that I need to do…"

My mother always claimed that she loved Christmas, despite a distinct lack of evidence that it was all that much fun for her, certainly in more recent years, but I do think that she liked the idea of Christmas rather more than the practical, harsh reality of the actual day itself which was, more often than not, a bit of a disappointment, especially when compared to the ones she seemed to believe that everyone else was having.

At least, that was always the impression that I got, despite the fact that my efforts to make the day nice for her, and cook her a good dinner, always seemed to be appreciated. Sometimes, like a lot of other things surrounding our particular family Christmases, it often felt as if these were merely the words that you were supposed to say, rather than them having any reality attached to them.

Ah well… I'm probably wrong, but that cynical streak runs deeply through the heart of me, and it's hard to lose it, even with my strange desire to have a  "proper" Dickensian house full when we finally get the "Big House" (which is never going to happen), or when (or if) I sit down for my (almost) annual trek to Bedford Falls, or when I'm flicking through "A Christmas Carol" once again, as I try to do at about this time each year.

Still, for the moment, in this house at least, it seems that Christmas is just something that happens to other people, that's all, but it does have its upside. After all, once you have decided to abandon Christmas ("all ye who enter here"), life does seem to get a heck of a lot simpler.

Nevertheless, and despite all of this rambling nonsense, I hope that you all have a happy one, no matter how you choose to do so.

* "No" in this instance being a relative term, of course.