Last year I did not 'do' Christmas. I had read an article by Matthew Delooze on Christmas & it just hit home. As I have a son I could not not do something, so I thought it through & suggested we have a special day on the 24th to celebrate all our achievements of that year. I recalled a fun expression from an Eddie Izzard stand-up & so 'Fantastico' was born.
When I looked back over that year I had so much to celebrate - a return to living & a decision to stand up & speak out as best I could. Throughtout that year I had done what was for me, many, many impossible things.
So instead of celebrating according to set traditions, we went just a little wild.
We put photos of our holidays on the walls & wrote big long lists of all the wonderful things from that year - anything & everything that made us smile, was valid. Decorations were mostly tropical flowers as reminders of Hawaii. My son still got presents & we had nice food. Some of my family joined in & I believe my young niece & nephew rather enjoyed it.
What's more it was most interesting to wander around the world on Christmas Day without being caught up in it - it felt a little like walking in on someone else's dream.
When my son was small we lived in England, I was separated from his father & I remember one year when he was going to take him away for the festivities, I decided to do that Christmas alone. I remembered hearing stories of people who had committed suicide because they were alone at Christmas, so I figured if I did one Christmas alone I would never fear the pain of solo Xmas'ing. I actually had a bloody good day, with a nice meal in the evening & I still remember the movie I watched that night with much fondness.
So I just thought I'd mention this. I see so much frustration come from Christmas, so much hope & often so much let down. I spent years trying to figure out how to get back the pleasure that I thought I recalled from childhood, but now I think it was us, the children of yesteryear who created the magic with our imaginations & playful energy. It is children who make Santa real - what is that all about anyway?? Why do we need that? I still recall a girl at school being so distraught because she had just found out that her parents were 'Santa' - little did she know that her emotional outburst also burst my bubble that day - I did my best to soothe her while dealing with my own feelings of having just found out who Santa was. Because of that I could never bring myself to create the Santa illusion for my son, I couldn't just tell him Santa was bollocks, but I did my best to keep him out of the limelight.
I've attached Matthew Delooze's article about Christmas if you haven't read & would perhaps like to - be warned it has some awful pictures in it about a third of the way down - personally I scrolled past them as quick as I could, but I understood his sentiments.
I understand that there are many who enjoy the Christmas season & I wish them every happiness & all the goodies they could wish for, but there are many who suffer in one way or another at this time & my wishes go out to them too.
http://matthew-delooze.blogspot.com/2006/12/so-is-this-christmas.html
