I've spent most of my life living on my own, so a quiet Christmas isn't something that's ever scared me. I had beans on toast one year, just because I could.
But what had I proved? That I can break convention and ignore a perfectly good excuse to try and break the daily grind of my normal routine? Whoop-de-whoop; yay me! You show 'em, Scrooge!
Ok, I was working in retail at the time and that sucks the Christmas out of you by about November 25th, let alone December 25th! All I usually wanted to do was sleep. But I'd nearly always cross the country to get back to Mum, because I know she always missed a "big" family Christmas.
Not that our family had ever been particularly close, but her nest was definitely rather empty. Usually it was just me and her or maybe one of the others. But about seven years ago life was tough at work and I had the opportunity to earn a lot of overtime over the festive period (before the traditional New Year overtime ban and profit panic), so I left her on her own. I still feel bad about that. She said it was fine, but... She cried on Christmas Day and there was no public transport for me to change my mind via. There were only a couple more normal Christmases left for her after that.
You never know what's coming next, and you never get today back again. Christmas can be the most miserable time of year, full of melancholic echoes of lost lives and unfulfilled dreams. But that's the same for every generation. Our parents missed the Christmases they had, but it didn't stop (most of) them trying to recreate it for us.
New Christmas traditions for families or even isolated individuals have to start somewhere. So I now celebrate the Winter Solstice with a festival of lights, a glass of port, and the vague hope that the lights will lead Mum out of the dementia fog for long enough to briefly remember what it's all about.
I don't expect it to happen. But sometimes I'll spot someone walking their dog, or children past the front garden and they'll stop to smile at the lights. It's not a fancy display; I just thread loads of lights through the various evergreen bushes and if I'm lucky it can look rather twinkly and random and secret-grottoey. If I'm not lucky it can look like a complete eyesore, but I can get away with that, because most folk round here have watched Mum's decline as we walk the dog over the last five years. Dementia can be a 'get out of jail free' card, sometimes.
One of the few good things about Mum's dementia is that she no longer insists we play Monopoly or Scrabble. I used to hate it back then. Now I'd give my right arm to have one last game with her. And now I've gone and made myself cry. Soft git. It's not even Christmas Eve and I'm already letting the ghost of Christmas Past out of its cage.
Back in yer box, vile spirit! I'm supposed to be advocating festivity, not illustrating what a dangerous game we play when we dig the decs out of the loft and dust off our Christmas emotions.
Speaking of spirits, I still have a bit of last year's port left. Maybe it's time to finish it off and start looking forward to opening the next one. Perks up the gravy a treat even if it's not a great port. One of these years I'll buy a bottle of everything and find out which ones I like best, but then I'd have to make an awful lot of gravy. Or put Mum in respite for January while the hangover wears off.
Anyway, there was a point to this post when I started off. I think it was just to illustrate that I know a thing or two about Bah Humbug! I used to throw Christmas cards from colleagues straight in the recycling. I'd scowl at customers who'd nick the pickles off the shelf two seconds after I'd put them out for the fifth time that night. I'd relish in schadenfreude when we ran out of decent Christmas puddings, cranberry sauce, or bisto turkey gravy two days before Christmas... we'd been selling them since what felt like Easter, how could folk have not bothered buying them til now? If the Grinch gave medals I'd have had a chest like a Chelsea Pensioner!
But there are no medals being handed out for being grumpy or hiding in the dark. Yes, life can be a grinding, miserable, disappointing trial. Yes, there are times when we're simply not capable of lifting ourselves out of the dementia mire. But if one person reads this thread and thinks... oh, go on, I'll get the tree out. Or plugs in a little string of lights. Or buys themselves a bottle of port (I'm open to suggestions for good ones!) Or simply wishes a miserable-looking stranger Merry Christmas when the time comes, then these posts will have been worth it.
However I reserve my right to change my mind at the drop of a hat and cancel Christmas. Santa left me a big red button last year and said I could hit it any time I wanted, because he(she/they) fancies a year off. The button is connected to a remote pair of castrating irons up at the North Pole, and Rudolph can't fly without his magic testicles. So don't p*ss me off you lot, or I'm cancelling Christmas for EVERYONE.
Right, where's that port.... Hang on, I appear to have finished it already. Explains a lot.