Mission: Christmas

I realise that my Christmas blog has landed in your cyber inboxes a little later than expected. There is a reason for this. I need time. I need time to recover. I need time to sleep and to get home and to realise that, despite how it feels, life will eventually return to normal because Christmas in my family is an oxymoron. At times it is sweet and full of laughter and eternally heart warming but at other times it is stressful and shouty and overwhelmingly full on.

At this point in the year, when it’s still so close and so raw, I only remember the stressful, shouty and overwhelming bits. As the new year starts to gather speed and winter’s dawn starts to encroach on our peaceful summer of sleepiness, I forget all that and I happily put on my rose-tinted glasses and I remember only the sweet, laughter-filled, eternally warming moments and I genuinely can’t wait for December 25th. But at this point in the year I feel the total opposite.

And don’t let anyone tell you that it’s just one day. It’s never just one day. It starts in September. It’s generally my mum that kicks it all off. She’s the one that makes the first phone call and presses the big, red, metaphorically flashing button that says: START CHRISTMAS. And she asks the question that Jimmy and I dread: “What are you two doing for Christmas this year?” And so it begins.

“We have to talk about Christmas.” I say to Jimmy seriously.
“Well, at least she left it until September this time. Last year it was July.”
And he’s right. It was.

Once the negotiations and peace talks are out of the way and our eight-day Christmas timetable is finalized we try to relax. We need to. We need to reserve energy, to catch up on sleep, to take vitamins, to hydrate and to learn the art of packing a capsule wardrobe because with presents for three families, there isn’t a lot of space left in the car for such things as clothes.

And so, the ultimate Christmas challenge begins: 8 days, 1,034 miles, 6 different beds, 45 parcels, 4 counties, one suitcase, a dog, a cat and two adults who are guaranteed to fight like children the whole way around. The only other people who try to complete such a gruelling and exhausting journey are the ones doing it to raise thousands of pounds for charity with people cheering them on and patting them on the back and offering rousing speeches when you don’t think you can go one mile more. There is no such support team on Mission: Christmas.

The first stop this year was my parent’s house. We thought it would be nice to relax before the big day. We thought it would be nice to stay in one place for more than a night or two, to settle and chill out and prepare. And it was. For a while. Then Dad started hiding the remote control so that we couldn’t interfere with his TV viewing pleasure. I checked the Radio Times and realised he’d highlighted what he wanted to watch. The system was one of “first come, first served”. He, I was reliably informed, was the “first come”. I was more than welcome to highlight my TV choices for the festive period (in a different colour of course) and if it didn’t clash then I was more than welcome to watch it. If it did then his “first come” trumped any arguments of fairness that I tried to promote.

It was in the middle of one of these TV based arguments that it hit me. I simply said the words, “But Dad, that’s just not fair,” and I realized that no matter how old you get and how unfair your Dad is being, you can’t say those words in any context without sounding like a teenager. Immediately he saw his advantage, “Stop being so childish Cat.” And I was defeated. There was nothing I could say and that is the problem with going home as an adult. They won’t let you grow up and you can’t help but revert a little. You will always lose. So, I ate all of his Ferrero Rocher in a silent protest. And then I felt sick.

The big day finally came. I still have the mental capacity of a six year old and so I’m awake at 5am and because I’m at home and I have reverted to a teenager I know that I won’t last the day without getting over tired. There will be tears before bedtime. I try to sleep. I really do but in the end I give in and at about 7am I get up to discover my mother is a woman possessed. She’s drowning in mince pies and canapés and Christmas cake and turkey sauces and gravy and pigs in blankets and crackers and she’s only got half a head of rollers. I offer to help. She tells me the most helpful thing I can do is to stay out of her way. She’s not being mean. She’s probably right so I retreat to the living room where the only thing in the whole world to do is to stare at the presents under the tree that I won’t be able to open for hours. And hours. And hours.

(Remember at this point, I’m still straddling the mental capacity of a 6 year old and a teenager).

Jimmy finally wakes up. At 11am. And takes an hour to shower and change. Mum and Dad want everyone dressed for present opening. At our house, there’s none of this ‘presents in pyjamas’ idea that I’ve heard about and secretly dream of. Each of us has a pile of presents in front of us. Dad skips his turn a few times. He’s got loads of presents but he wants to be the one left with presents when the rest of us have all finished. Mum says she loves everything but I’m pretty sure she’ll exchange it and Jimmy is just pleased he got a remote control helicopter for Christmas. I don’t have very many presents, not after I opened most of them earlier.

Presents done and the second bottle of Champagne (well, fizzy wine) opened we patiently await the arrival of my brother and sister and their families. My Mum has figured this out by now. She tells them to arrive at 12pm knowing that they are always a least an hour late. When they defy all tradition and actually turn up on time she’s thrown into a catering-coloured frenzy. The canapés are accidentally burned, the meal won’t be ready for ages and there aren’t even any Ferrero Rocher to munch on because someone ate them all, but no one is admitting to it. We open more champagne and sit down for the second round of present opening.

The lunch is fabulous. It always is, apart from the pigs in blankets that are forgotten about and left in the Aga to be cremated. Last year it was the Yorkshire Puddings. Next year it will be something else but rest assured, something will always be forgotten. We munch our way through a veritable feast of outstanding food – the fruits of my mother’s kitchen-based nervous breakdown – and wash it down with wine and merriment. We pull crackers and tell rubbish jokes, and pick on Dad a little for the food that he’s left in his moustache. My two-year-old nephew keeps us highly amused with his funny sayings and cute face. We tell everyone we love them and for about two hours we totally forget about the TV arguments and the presents that we’ll exchange and the burned canapés and the stolen Ferrero Rochers. And it’s amazing.

On Boxing Day everything goes back to normal. Dad and I squabble about the Radio Times. He’s seen through my plan of trying to Tippex his yellow highlighter out. Mum refuses to cook one more thing so we pick mindlessly at turkey, bread, cheese and Christmas cake all day. Jimmy spends the whole day playing with his helicopter. The dog poos on the kitchen floor and I’m pretty sure I can make out wrapping paper, string and Ferrero Rocher wrappers. And so we pack up and leave and we trek to the M1 for the next stop in the Home Counties.

We still have two Christmases to go and it’s not even nearly January. Already the thought of more turkey makes me want to gag and I think I’ve been a little drunk for about three days straight. I’m exhausted. I’m suffering simultaneous sugar highs and sugar lows but in four days time it will all be over. Then it’ll be New Year’s Eve and with that will come a hangover and a brand new January 1st. Then by January 4th I’ll be back at work and life will, once again, return to normal. The days will get longer, the weather will warm up and the snow will melt.

Now, where have I put my rose-tinted glasses?