Food, drink, shiny things and being merry – Gabi Lardies has decided to enjoy her 34th Christmas.
The thing about Christmas is that much of it hurts me. The social obligations, the consumerism, all the eating of things that upset my stomach. It looms over December and November, when devilled eggs dance like demons in my dreams. I’ve been secretly crying on and about every Christmas for probably over a decade. Dissociating is my crutch. I’ve read the not very useful and rather depressing guides for introverts to survive Christmas that litter the internet. Many include escape plans and hiding in the bathroom. My self help book says surviving isn’t really a good aim. We should be thriving.
Some think what society needs is a hyper horny silly play after this shitter of a year. I’m venturing out to say that every year is going to be a bit shitty going forward and there won’t always be an orgy so we need to make Christmas work for us. We need to love Christmas to get by.
I made it to the 26th of November before anyone expected me to be anywhere for the big evening. My partner’s family has assumed it’s my family’s turn to have me. My dad has inserted himself in his girlfriend’s family and is either going away somewhere or hasn’t thought to invite me yet. My siblings are elsewhere. Two babies have been born this year, but they have other plans. My mum texted me on November 24th asking “What are you doing for Xmas?????” I replied the next morning with “Umm nothing plans [sic] yet” (why is my brain so smooth?).
That much of the year passing by without the weight of family Christmas expectations has done something to my heart. I’ve been looking up Christmas crafts on the internet. For the first time ever I’ve thought about getting a tree, but because extra space is a luxury I don’t have in my once-was-a-garage home, I decided on making a chic paper one. I’m browsing for advent calendars. At the op shops I’m on the lookout for cookie cutters so I can make gingerbread cookies, and I’ve hung a big bell with a Christmas ribbon on my front gate. This focus on decor and crafts has made Christmas feel like a less spooky Halloween. When I visit malls I look at the decorations (up in mid-November I mean come on!) and think, “Wow, so pretty”. I don’t care that every tree is fake and every bauble is plastic.
For far too long I have held onto a general disdain for “normal people”. I have scuttled into sticky underground bars instead of donning body-con dresses and drinking on roof tops, and been a snooty-nosed grimey bludger. But recently I’ve been accepting I’m actually a basic bitch. I go to the gym and do those maggot HIT classes. I work 9-5 in an office and don’t wear the clothes with holes in them (mostly). I rave about how much I love coffee probably because it’s the only mind-altering substance in my regular rotation. I wrinkle my nose when toilets are dirty or counters are sticky. These disgusting changes (ageing?) have paved the way to embracing Christmas.
Last December I chatted with two friends about Christmas plans over coffee. I was off to be a plus-one who may or may not get PhotoShopped out of the family photos in the future (sorry B you just never know what will happen) and they were off to do a Great Walk. Despite having easily accessible family in the country, they’d be by themselves, doing something they actually wanted to do, like a real holiday. There would be no elongated meal, no seeing parents drunk, no making small talk with people’s partners who may as well be aliens for all you have in common, no having to give gifts no one wants or receiving random crap to guiltily take to the op shop next week, no being trapped at other people’s houses for hours on end with the toilet your only chance at a moment of peace. I was shook to my core. I simply didn’t know that was allowed.
On the 26th of November came the inevitable invites from my mum. A sort of hodgepodge of her old friends and their families we have often attached ourselves to in lieu of having any family beyond our nuclear, which for decades sat around the dinner table accompanied only by the sound of scraping cutlery. These invites don’t fit what my heart wants for Christmas. My heart wants to have a duvet day, make some mimosas, hardly talk to anyone, read a book, look at my cute crafts and not feel any pressure to do anything or be available to anyone. I decided to compromise because I don’t want to be one of those people who asserts their boundaries at the cost of everyone around them. I will have a tiny Christmas breakfast at my house, make my mum and brother mimosas and pancakes and then send them off with gingerbread cookies. That’s a Christmas I can love.