A Christmas Tale
A Christmas tale should be jolly and heart warming, with a tinge of tragedy. Just that hint of sadness, because the season is always slightly bittersweet. Past a certain age Christmas stops being about sweets and toys, and you start being aware that you’ll never be a child again, and you’ll never get lost in the magic of Christmas quite the way you did when you were six. Well, not until you’re senile and think you’re six again. You start becoming aware of the people who are missing at Christmas time, maybe your kids aren’t there, or maybe you end up being half a world away from the woman you love.
You dream of a Christmas miracle, some way that you can just spend the day with everyone you love, and just have those people who mean more to you than anything else around you, just for that one day of the year. That’s how it was when we were kids, wasn’t it? You’d wake up and all your family would be there. You’d go wake up your sisters and you’d all sit on your oldest sister’s bed and find out what Father Christmas had left in your stocking (usually some kind of giant sock that you’d had to borrow off her the night before, and which was now hideously stretched out of shape, but she never seemed to mind). There’d always be a Satsuma and ten pence piece at the bottom, every year. Then you’d all go wake up your parents and drag them downstairs, and you’d arrange all the presents into piles in front of everyone. You’d smile because your pile was the largest, because you were the youngest, and you were too young to even think how that made your sisters feel.
Before you knew it the morning was over and your mum was filling a black sack with wrapping paper. Then you’d all pile in the car and drive to your grandparents, where it was always warm, and already full of the smells of dinner cooking. There’d be turkey and crackers and more presents. Your granddad would play the piano and you’d all sing. Everyone was just happy.
Then you remember that you’ll be waking up alone this Christmas, and that your kids will be waking up in a different house, and you just wish that somehow you’ll all have a happy Christmas anyway.
georgelondon
Ian, I’ve just returned home from my first nightshift at the homeless shelter and this is hitting way too many chords for me to reread any time soon. It’s bleak and raw and the nostalgia felt like it was coming from somewhere tarnished, right from the start. You got me mate. Great write.
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Rivka Jacobs
The last paragraph made me cry. A very moving story, honest and powerful.
Filled with contrasts: between the past and the present, idealized memory and reality. Almost a kind of lamentation with just a touch of hope. Kind of the inverse of the opening sentence, “heart-warming” and “jolly” with a “tinge of tragedy” becomes mostly tragedy — the last line is bleak and stark — with a touch of hope.
Greater than the sum of its parts, once again. Good job, Ian, but I’m sorry for the RL situation that gives this story so much feeling and depth.
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Nicolas Papaconstantinou
I’m really quite glad I didn’t read this heartbreaking piece of writing before Christmas. Nice work, Ian.
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