Christmas

When Daniel and I first bought a house and joined our families together, in 1999, he with his three boys, me with my son and daughter, we had no idea what Christmas dramas lay of us. We hadn't even considered it as being something to cause problems - I mean everyone loves Christmas, don't they? But as the weather grew chilly and sweet letters to Santa flew up the chimney, the difficulties began to emerge. For a start, it became clear that whilst Daniel is great at participating in Christmas, in truth, he'd rather abandon the entire thing, hop on a plane to Asia and return sometime mid-Jan. And although that is a lovely thing to do and I had a great time the year we did it, the truth is, my heart at Christmas is really at home. And then there was the tree. My kids and I had always enjoyed real Christmas trees, not just real ones, in fact, but extra specially gorgeous ones with non-drop needles. Even as a single parent living on income support my Christmas tree was a big deal for me. Whereas Daniel and his family favoured a kind of make-shift-silver-sprayed-something-from-the-woods, beautiful of course, but in our mind's it wasn't really a tree. And then there was the drama over tinsel. They loved it. We loathed it. And presents? We were used to opening one present on Christmas Eve, they weren't. And that's before the drama of the stockings! His boys had them on the end of their beds, mine hanging from the mantlepiece. And how would Santa even know that they were with us that year and not with their other parent? And what about next year when they'd be with them? How would he know where to go? And so it went on and on... and on. The levels of anxiety growing, forcing everyone to compromise in some areas and get creative in others, finding ways to discover new traditions of our own. And that was the best bit, drilling down to the bare facts of what Christmas really meant for us all. Family time, being together, in Asia or in England. One year with us, the next with their other parent, a tradition that still rolls itself gently along, bringing a sense of safety in its rhythm for us all. But the best, most long-lasting, and wonderfully cherished of these new traditions is our pudding-time sharing of how our year has been and what hopes, dreams and fears we have for the year to come. It began as a fairly lightweight sharing, but 20 years on and our round-the-table-time now lasts around 3 hours and has become a truly treasured part of everyone's year, to the extent that if any of them have been off on their travels, great care is taken with timings, so they can join us via Skype. There's lots of laughter and plenty of tears - both sad ones and touched ones. And an honest rawness and depth of truth emerges that requires true listening and trust, everyone delving a little deeper each year, sharing a little more of themselves. And now the kids have grown and have partners of their own, they join in too, and even Freddy, our gold-haired boy, has his say. And so it goes on, a composite family successfully melted together into a pool of love that spreads and grows.