I always thought Christmas was something you had to do. Spending it alone wasn’t just non-optional, it was sad. But after a reread of my diary from last year and about three seconds of deliberation, I’ve decided I’ll be doing this Christmas completely on my own terms.
Friday, 27 December 2024
6:14 pm
I’m back in England. Let me say this once more, for the last time. That is the last time I do that. No more family Christmases.
Christmas is a strange time of year. I don’t really understand the pressure to buy things and do things and feel things on cue. Add the fact that the year is ending and every December I find myself drowning in existential dread, tallying up every promise I couldn’t keep to the optimistic January version of me, who is of course now nowhere to be seen.
No bueno.
This year, I turned 30 and had the most monumental breakup of my life so I’m giving myself some fucking grace and preserving my energy however I see fit. That includes unsubscribing from Christmas.
I’ve never been a big fan of it. Not since I was a child. I’m not traumatised or anything, at least I wasn’t before. It’s just not my thing.
I don’t like overconsumption. I don’t like pretence. I don’t like things being closed. And most importantly, I don’t like who I become when I’m with my family for too long.
I should start by saying that I’ve rarely enjoyed a family Christmas since I was a child. No. I should actually preface this entire thing by saying that I love my family very much. Every single one of them. Just not all at once. And not at Christmas. (Or at any time that requires coordination or planning that isn’t mine.)
Perhaps I should unpack this more in therapy, but there’s something about my immediate family that flips a switch in me. I don’t show up as the adult I’ve worked hard to become. I become the petulant child who felt unheard, overstimulated, and trapped. I regress. I lash out. I sulk. I snap. I become distorted. I become someone I’ve spent years unlearning.
I can recall one Christmas two years ago that I found enjoyable. Christmas 2023. I had conspired with my mother to have a non-traditional Christmas in a place where they don’t celebrate Christmas: Marrakesh. She was elated. My sister loves a flight to anywhere. And my brothers do as they’re told.
I planned and booked everything. The riad, transport, a chef, activities. No presents. No tree. No food prep. No fuss.
We tried to recreate the same thing last year in the Canary Islands but it didn’t quite work. First of all, I wasn’t in charge of the planning. Things had been tense with my mum and my sister so I reluctantly took a back seat approach, dreading the trip before it began.
I couldn’t enjoy a single second of my time. I craved my autonomy and my space. I tried to smile and be gracious and peaceful. For them. But my body was literally waging war on me.
The one thing I’ve taken away from this year is that I’m done prioritising other people’s comfort at the cost of my own. I have done the maths. Only one recent Christmas doesn’t fill me with dread. I don’t like those odds.
My mother has given me her blessing.
“I don’t blame you,” she said. “I’d do the same if I could.”
My family will be fine without me. Possibly better. My siblings will get drunk and stay up talking, we will FaceTime. They’re spending Christmas in a cottage in Wales for a few days.
Wales. Random. I’ve never been.
Every year when I ask her what she’d like for Christmas, mum says,“I just want all of my children to be happy”.
Seems like an impossible feat, Rebecca, but this year one of us might be a little closer. Thank you!
My dad was slightly less okay when I told him.
“You can’t spend Christmas alone,” he said. He even offered to drive hours to collect me and bring me back to London. He thinks I’m having a mental break. He thinks I should go out more.
He’s not wrong.
The only person I want to honour right now is me. And me wants peace. So I’m doing the thing I’ve always wanted to do for Christmas and never thought I had the option to: I’m unsubscribing.
No gifts. No noise. No fuss. Just me and my well-deserved solitude.
Well. Almost no gifts. I did buy one for my sister’s boyfriend which sounds sad and weird but he’s really lovely and he loves my sister unabashedly. He also let me cry at him on my sofa for six months straight.
At least I was stressing over buying a gift for someone else’s man and not my own. Growth, babe.
If life goes the way it’s supposed to, I won’t be single and childless forever. So this might be one of the only chances I get to have a single hot girl Christmas, and that feels important.
I’ll tell my kids about the year I turned 30 and spent my first ever Christmas alone.
I think that’s really special. Monumental, even.
I want to make panettone bread and butter pudding for one. I want to order takeaway. I want to do DIY and home improvements because that brings me joy. I want to see friends and come home whenever I want to come home. To my home. I want to write. Or not write. I want to do whatever I want.
I was going to go away on a solo trip but when I thought about it, I genuinely am excited to be alone in London without guilt. Without feeling like I should be getting up and doing more. Exploring more. Dressing up for breakfast or dinner or a chance encounter with a perfect stranger at a hotel bar.
I’ve done all of that before. Running. Searching for chaos. For a story. For a plot. For a feeling outside of myself.
Always so radical.
Maybe what’s radical now is allowing myself to exist quietly. A vacation for one, right here in my safe place.
I’m not searching. I have everything I need right here.
So right here is where I’ll be.
And because I’m a smart, smart grown up girl, I’ve made a number of SOS contingency plans in the somewhat unlikely event of a sudden Christmas Day mental unravelling.
Look at you being a responsible adult all on your own. Good girl.
See you next time in the confessional,
Blithe x
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