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Covid was everywhere, the fridge was empty and my former partner was coming to spend the day with me and my new girlfriend. Christmas was doomed … wasn’t it?
The year was 2020 and Christmas itself hung in the balance. We had spent the last nine months in and out of Covid lockdowns. Initially, we had reacted with total diligence, united in fear and grief. But then we entered into an interminable hokey-cokey of being allowed out, then back in, then a bit out, then a bit in again. Obligatory scotch eggs was a particularly low point. By winter, the rules had become confusing and often felt unfollowable.
Nevertheless, hope prevailed. We hadn’t seen our extended families for so long and the government promised that Christmas would not be cancelled. Christmas always feels a bit “high stakes”, even in normal times, but this one had been dialled up to 11. The extended absences from family meant we missed them all to bits. Also, my son was five – a peak age for enjoying yuletide business. I co-parent with my son’s dad (my ex) and, as luck would have it, it was my turn to have my son on Christmas Day. We were going to stay with my parents in Dorset and it felt like it had to be a good one.
I’m a planner at heart, so the slight uncertainty was making a monster of me. I held my horses as best I could and waited until mid-December to let myself buy presents for everyone I was going to see. I also began to empty the fridge of perishable food, ready for our big adventure.
Cut to 20 December when it was announced that, actually, none of us were going anywhere. Reader, I was raging.
After some quick discussions around how to best protect the “specialness” of the following week for the child in our lives, we decided to have Christmas at home: me, my son, my girlfriend and my ex. All together, in one room, all day, just us. It felt like the emotional equivalent of throwing a packet of Mentos into a two-litre bottle of Coke. My ex lived locally and was already in my Covid “bubble” – this wasn’t our own private Partygate – but the relationship dynamic of “not‑with-him-but-with-her” was only a year old. The setup was very much still a work in progress. What could possibly go wrong?
To everyone’s surprise, though, we all got on like a house on fire. Discovering that Christmas could be done in our own way – without being beholden to the whims of our elders – felt freeing.
At Christmas, my family usually likes to drink hard and eat late. It sounds great, but when dinner keeps slipping, from 4pm to 6pm to 8pm, you are already hungover by the time the turkey appears. Attempting to enjoy a massive feast in a state of fugue from a day fuelled by snacks, booze and anticipation is nigh on impossible. Add children to that mix and you are guaranteed a few tears, too.
My ex came from the opposite kind of Christmas tradition: his was a day full of extreme formality and militarily precise timings, where every year is identical to the last: dinner at 13.06, followed by one hour and 47 minutes of brutal parlour games. Add children to that mix and you are guaranteed a few tears, too.
They used to play pass the parcel, but, instead of prizes within the layers, there were dares. One year, I witnessed an aunt deliberately pause the music so that her son-in-law would receive the dare of “walk around the table like a dog”.
Left to our own devices, we discontinued these traditions. Instead, we made new ones, including: slow, easy, team-effort cooking; board games and gifts and then more board games; breaks for fresh air or exercise or baths or any other necessary moments of solitude. I also made a triumphant chestnut soup starter, which we all said we would happily eat every day for the rest of the year.
In short, it was perfect. Until, that is, I went to fetch the turkey that had been resting in the kitchen, only to discover that one of the cats had got there first. Just to make his point, he had also dragged it around the kitchen floor. But I was still far less angry with the cat than I was with Boris Johnson; he had never promised to behave in the first place.
We made a real success out of our last-minute mess and it changed the course of our Christmas traditions for good. Now, instead of taking turns to take our son to our respective family homes, every third year we do this again. We have Christmas at home, just us – a mad, modern, muddled-together jumble of a family. So, 2020 was the year that Christmas that went right – in the end.
The Christmas that went wrong: We went into last-minute lockdown – and I had to spend the big day with my ex
