The life and death of my Christmas

The red cups are out - John Lewis is trending and the hellish sight of Oxford Street brings a smile to my face for the first time in eleven months. Christmas is, and will forever remain my favourite time of the year. But this is a story of how it went from being a young boy’s imaginary wonderland, to a real world fairy tale and finally warping to an upside-down like nightmare - familiar but soul chilling with nostalgic reference.

As a second generation child of an Asian family in Britain who were fiercely Catholic, we always took Christmas very seriously. When I say seriously I mean in the literal sense. Some commercial customs like lights and a tree were adhered to as well as hymns being played on CDs and the traditional Christmas dinner to coincide with the Queen’s speech. Then there was midnight mass, the obligatory impersonal gifts totalling around £15 (usually vouchers, or the promise of buying a new coat in the boxing day sales). A very formal relationship with the second most important holiday in our religious calendar.

Of course being one of the ‘90s whose social norms were defined by how much television they were left to watch, I began to have my image of what Christmas should be (and indeed how long it should last) reshaped. All of a sudden it began in mid-November when Thanksgiving episodes of American children’s shows were broadcast. Not having a clue what this genocide festival was I can only assume my mind spliced it with Christmas due to the prevalence of turkey.

This began the idea that a Christmas without a huge family was something to look upon with pity.Whilst my extended family is huge, we are so spread out that it would be like herding cats to try and gather us during a peak travel time. I made up for this by watching every conceivable feel-good family Christmas film and pretending I was the child who inevitably saves Christmas. As I took to my preteens, I would close my eyes and imagine Saint Nick visiting me just to say hello. It was difficult to imagine the scenario of presen delivery as my parents adopted their own tradition of opening gifts upon return from midnight mass and immediately going to bed.

The strangest of phenomenons is having to try and fashion a belief in something you know to be a fiction in order to foster a specific emotion. I imagine it’s something similar to a conflict that an Atheist might feel is they were desperate to convert to a religion. I’d do all the new wave Christmas things (Stockings, Holly and watching every BBC Christmas special in the TV guide) on my own and live in my own Winter Wonderland until the age of 17.

My first Christmas in love. It was an utter revelation. Although stuck in a sleepy town, the joy of walking hand in hand through an admittedly grotty high street was completely new. Even the memory of walking idly by unconvincing fake snow and the most generic of German Christmas Market stalls for the first time brings a smile to my face. Then that year, once Christmas day came my only memory is waiting until my dad had fallen asleep and jumping straight into my car. Twenty minutes later I was sitting with my girlfriend’s family in a Christmas day tradition that I only saw at the melancholic montage at the end of an Eastenders festive episode. The whole family (around a dozen in total) were gathered around watching the first modern Doctor Who special. There was a cheese plate, pate and biscuits - I had no idea this happened in real life.

This continued for several years and that’s when my definition of Christmas day changed forever. The year that relationship ended I was fortunate enough to find love for the second time in my life which was quite close to Christmas, however the biggest difference was that it was the first time either of us had lived in London over the festive period, which is a BIG difference. From Oxford Street to Southbank to Covent Garden (and the dreaded Winter Wonderland), Christmas time in and around London irrefutably just has a commercial Christmassy aura. Whether you love it or hate it it’s there - and experiencing a next level to sickly Christmas cheer for the first time, with a second person I loved began to rip the connection of immediate family away from Christmas. My quick 20 minute journeys to a neighbouring town replaced with an eight hour solo slog from the evening into the early morning to make it to wake up on boxing day morning with my new love. For me the season had become a sort of month long Valentine’s day. This is where the warning signs should have popped up.

Traditions began to form. Pilgrimages to Covent Garden, City farms (don’t ask), cooking with the whole sprout tree so that we could donk each other with the leftover trunk and many more. Areas, smells, tastes would not just evoke Christmas but memories. And around November a few years ago we had come to the decision that due to my own personal issues that our relationship could go no further. As we lived together, we made the (in hindsight) ridiculous decision to ‘stay together’ until the New Year and pretend as if everything was as usual.

Those of you who rolled their eyes at that point were right to. If it weren’t for my fragile state, I doubt that the idea would have even been considered. It was then we proceeded upon a funeral march, executing each of our traditions in both of the senses.Knowing each would be the last time was bittersweet, with reluctant tears escaping every now and again. To this day I don’t know if I would do it again, but that pushes me onto the last couple of Christmases.

My first single Christmas in years was immersing myself in cooking and pretending I was having a good time. Pottering around the markets alone and lamely attempting to perform dead traditions. I even think I managed to get a date to stealthily (in vain) emulate a couple of them.The following year there were several months in which my parents and I refused to speak to each other. A few weeks before Christmas I caved and phoned my father with a simple question.

“Do you want me to come this Christmas?”

Anyone who has been in the most petty of family arguments will know where this is going. He merely offered ‘If you want to come, then come’. After this a 10 minute dispute continued loudly walking by Spitalfields Market over whether he would simply say that he wanted me there on Christmas day. Before you question, I did emphasise that I wanted to come - but petty family squabbles are named so because of such things. Having had enough I resolved to stay at my rental accommodation with my bed to curl up in and nothing but my iPhone for streaming and an oven pizza for eating.

Having rambled through all of that. This year I’ll be forced into a house with my parents with a fake smile plastered across my face for the obligatory picture - clinging to #JoinIn at every second I can get, smiling and sighing through every Christmas related thing I see (especially mulled wine - I wish every sip didn’t speedball my emotions). I hope whatever your relationship with Chirstmas that you make the best of the festive period whether you’re lucky enough to make it amazing, or whether you have to struggle to make it tolerable.