It’s nine days to Xmas. I don’t know why, but that makes me feel immediately anxious. It’s exactly the same feeling as having an assignment due but you haven’t even started yet.
I only put the Xmas tree up yesterday. I think you’re supposed to get that sorted by the first of December. You don’t have to have a tree, but I’m so conditioned I can’t not erect some sort of tacky tinsel and flashing lights installation. I don’t want some psychologist in a dingy office somewhere hearing how I damaged my kids with my hard-arsed views on overly commercialised celebrations: ‘So your mother never truly loved you?’
I don’t know why, but Xmas has always made me feel like a failure. I suck at making Xmas cake. I suck at ham. I suck at doing a traditional lunch. Mainly because I hate traditional Xmas food, and Xmas cake makes me want to puke. When it comes to Xmas, I don’t do the fairy lights on the house thing. I admire the commitment, but when I drive past your house and it lights up like a David Jones window I think ‘that person is definitely not having sex anymore.’ Which is rude of me, but I think if you’re up a ladder installing a flashing reindeer you’ve got too much time on your hands. Making magic in the front yard instead of in the bedroom!
I suck at making magic. I don’t get the gift thing: ‘wake up – I bought you a present for Jesus’ birthday!’ The Santa story is creepy. I think we can all agree the idea of an old man in a bizarrely weather-inappropriate suit giving presents to children is what we now call ‘grooming’. Except on 25 December. That’s the Xmas miracle. It’s probably a miracle he’s still not cancelled. Maybe we just rename him the Capitalist Clause.
My husband has a knack for buying me some of the worst gifts I’ve ever received. It makes for disappointment on the day, but a story that lasts for months. Last year it was a high-pressure water cleaner. It was in a big box. When your present is the one in the big box you can’t help but get really excited. It’s big box theory. The bigger the box, the better the pressie. So when I ripped off the wrapping to find a concrete cleaner I felt, well, like hosing my husband. Lucky for him it’s still in the box.
I go to a lot of trouble buying presents. I put a lot of thought into what I get my kids and always spend way more than I can afford. No one ever seems to notice, or care and I end up wondering why I bothered, and how so much money and effort just ends in a mess of paper and ribbon and a pile of stuff that needs to be exchanged. I’m not doing that this year. I’ve decided I’ll give them something I’ve never given – my undivided attention. Try exchanging that! Oh no, I’ve run out already and it’s not even Xmas yet!
Xmas is always about the lunch. I can’t do lunch. The idea of eating a prepared meal in the stinking heat, when you don’t have to, seems like a health risk. I’m a ‘let’s eat at 5pm’ Xmas mum. So, when everyone else is lying around relaxing and drinking, I spend all day in the kitchen cooking. It ensures, by 5pm, when everyone is really hungry, but wonderfully chilled from a super restful day, I am hot, angry and resentful. And I don’t drink anymore, and everyone is pissed and annoying. And I’m sober and sulky. Yay.
Xmas lunch dinner requires tables to be dragged from spare rooms and cobbled together to make room for the extras. There’s always extras. And eventually we sit. I’ve slaved for hours and it’s a fairly average spread. Salad, ham, chicken legs, something for the vegans. And pavlova, always pavlova. It’s the only Xmas thing I do well. Except when I was drinking and by the time I was supposed to present the pav I was too pissed to bother, so I’d wake up on Boxing Day with an empty shell, half a kilo of strawberries and two litres of unwhipped cream. Sounds like the props for Xmas porn. One year it was.
But weirdly I love Xmas. I love being with my kids. With people I love. I love the bickering. The melty heat. The build-up, and then, that it’s over. I know there are people who are alone – who don’t have the privilege of feeling disappointed and annoyed.
So I know I’m lucky. There’s still only nine days left at writing. At reading there’ll be less.
Just know, that anything you do is never enough.
Once you make peace with that, go forth and disappoint the people you love.
I have a high-pressure hose on market place – never used – if you want a special surprise! Hoses away grease stains and your marriage!
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
