The tree, lights, decorations, presents, Santa, school concerts, Christmas carols, Christmas Mass, movies, turkey, ham, candles, sequins, parties, the elf, The Toy Show, Christmas pyjamas, Christmas jumpers, entertaining, visiting, days out, nights out, treats, alcohol, boardgames, advent calendars, four types of potatoes, gingerbread houses, raffles, gift collections, shopping, wrapping, making memories, maintaining traditions, Christmas cards, family, keeping the peace.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
And I say that without even a hint of irony. Or at least I did until I looked in exhausted wonder at that incomplete list.
I adore Christmas. I think. I am she who believes it is perfectly acceptable to put up the Christmas tree on November 1st, watch Christmas movies in the summer, and play Christmas songs at Halloween, all in hope of a Christmas feeling rush.
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You’ll know the one I mean. The one that clearly keeps us succumbing to the madness listed above. The one that’s so revered it’s basically unacceptable to say out loud that you dislike this time of year, lest someone hiss “bah humbug” at you or call you the Grinch.
“But I am the Grinch,” one friend told me as I teased him about disliking Christmas. He’s not particularly keen on people either so it’s easy to presume that’s why. Turns out it was a bit more than that.
“I hate it and nearly everything that goes with it. It doesn’t help when people hear you don’t like Christmas and say, ‘it’s the season of goodwill’. Surely we should be treating everyone with kindness and compassion all year round, not just because we’re celebrating the birth of someone most of us don’t even believe in”.
There were financial pressures too, he said, explaining that his partner worried five presents for their child “looked skimpy”. But the cost mounts up.
He, of course, isn’t alone in feeling the season-to-be-jolly is overrated. “Jen, I’m beginning to really resent it”, another woman told me. “I’ve lists of lists. For both families. I’m fielding questions like, ‘have you got everything?’ and ‘have you thought about the Christmas dinner?’ With no help at home my chest is tight. And the expense! I’ve really cut back this year and I’m still watching the cents. I feel like a real grinch and it’s a struggle not to vent in front of the kids”, she admitted.
For one dad I spoke to, trying to ensure Christmas is special for his children means parking his own stress and loneliness. He’s separated and is “struggling both financially and emotionally at this time of the year”. The financial pressures of maintenance and supporting another home means things will be very different. “I used to love Christmas and buying gifts. I just can’t do it this year. Extended family and siblings won’t be getting anything this year, unfortunately”, he says.
“The emotional load as a separated dad is huge. There’s huge stress around where we spend Christmas. I’m very lucky in that we have an amicable separation so we’re well able to be in the same room together. But you’re going to your ex-wife’s house to spend some time in the morning, and it’s not your house”, he adds, explaining the different level of comfort that results.
Outside of that time, he says, “I’m typically sitting on my own on Christmas Eve ... and then again on Christmas night I’m sitting on my own. It’s lonely and it’s difficult and it amplifies it around that time. For someone who loved Christmas all my life – it was my favourite time of the year – it has a very different meaning now”.
“I absolutely hate when people say, ‘are you all set?’,” a mum told me in conversation. “Someone asked me last week and I said, ‘no I’m not, because I haven’t a penny’.
“Even when my own children asked me had I started buying presents I had to reply, no I hadn’t because I didn’t have the money. Financially, it is a big stress.”
It’s not only parents who find the financial and emotional toll of Christmas to be heavy. “People wanting to meet at Christmas is stressful”, one man admitted, not that he’s averse to having a night out, it’s people coming out of the woodwork just because it’s Christmas, he explained. While primary schoolteachers, who had cajoled more carolers and shepherded more shepherds than any adult might reasonably expect to in a lifetime, told of the unseen work and long hours that go into making the memorable nativity and Christmas show experiences parents cherish, while balancing the fallout on young children of families struggling with the pressures of the season.
“Stressed, anxious, nauseous, overwhelmed, frazzled, dread, panicked, exhausted”, more adults chimed in – and the elf barely here a wet week yet.
