I am glad Christmas is over

I’m glad Christmas is over. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Christmas, but I’m just glad that it’s over. The Christmas period used to be very special to me as a child because it meant holidays, new clothes and an abundance and indulgence in food, which is one of my favourite things still, but Christmas has taken a whole different place in my heart since I have, in my opinion, grown up. It is not a period of happiness for all people, but only those select few who can afford to be happy.

As sad as it is, I must declare that I do not enjoy the holiday season as much as I used to in the past. It does not hold the same meaning for me. With age came responsibility, not of my creation, but which was passed on to me by my family who just assumed that I would carry the burden without any consultation with me on whether I would be willing to carry it.

It is no wonder that I hear the rate of reported suicides goes up exponentially during this period. Although the retail groups and all those in the business of swindling your hard-earned bonus during the happy season by offering you retail therapy and calling it Christmas tradition are trying to convince you that Christmas is a happy time, in truth the holidays are a time of reflection and contemplation that may lead your life in two very different directions after that period of contemplation is completed.

After this period is through, you will be left broke for one and, most importantly, it will leave you emotionally bankrupt depending on pre-existing conditions in your life, family, career and community. All these will influence firstly what kind of holiday season you will have, but also — and more concerning — how you will feel when the holiday season has passed and you are forced to return back to your reality, your real non-fantasised reality, which will be minus the “Ho ho hos!”, the annoying songs, the turkey and the large and ever-present box of Bakers Choice Assorted Biscuits.

In this piece I will go through what I think are the most common thoughts and considerations that one goes through during the “season to be jolly” and how I think it affects people. I will look at scenarios, physical things and emotions that are stirred during the season that is meant to bring us all closer to one another. I will use personal experiences and the stories I have heard from close friends and family to illustrate some of my thoughts. Here goes …

So it is Christmas time and you do the obligatory thing and take leave from work to head home for the holidays, or away from home, whichever the case may be — but home is a central theme when it comes to deciding how you are going to spend your free time over the holidays. It seems that it is irrelevant whether you like your family or not. You will go home at some point during the happy season. Not showing your face at your family home means you have neglected your family and no one likes to be labelled a neglector of family.

It is funny how you only remember when you get home just how ugly the situation is, and remains to be, at your home, if that is the pre-existing situation; not in the physical sense, but in the emotional and the irreparably damaged dysfunctional relationships you have with you siblings and parents. After the initial falsely excited greetings, you are left wondering what it is that you came back to this place for: to see the old folks, yeah, but what else is there? After about five minutes you will have reluctantly and with fake congratulations and encouragement caught up with what each of your family members are up to; now all that is left is for you is to see that aunt who always asks you for beer money, and that is it, you are done!

You grin and bear it for the sake of your parents and the children, your nieces and nephews. You act happy to be home, but ultimately you cannot wait to get out of there and head back for the sanctuary of your small flat with loud neighbours in a dodgy suburb. Why do you feel that way when all you wanted as a child was to be in the nurturing environment of home, which used to be your sanctuary from the unkind outside world if you were lucky enough to feel that way? What has changed so much in your condition to make you, in your subconscious (because you won’t openly admit it, even to yourself), despise your home and those with whom you grew up?

Perhaps it has something to do with sibling rivalry that remains unresolved; perhaps it has something to do with unresolved issues of how you were raised among your siblings and whether you thought you received the same amount of attention and fair treatment that your siblings did, and whether you were shown favouritism or not. It may also have something to do with the competition that still exists between all of you, and you still stack each up each other’s success to see who is ahead of the pack — maybe to prove a point to parents who have not shown you favouritism. Maybe you are just a snob and now believe that you are too good for the people who raised and nurtured you.

Christmas feels to me now like a time when all my failures become glaring. When you are on holiday and have basically nothing to do from the morning until you start drinking in the afternoon, you have time to reflect on all your failures. You should be concentrating on your successes, but who cares about those? If you have not achieved what is set out for you by society and family, in their eyes you are not successful at all; you are disappointing and although they, in most cases, will not tell you, you can sense it in their interaction with you. You will sense the underlying judgement and condemnation — maybe you are just too consumed by your failures or perceived failures at this time that you are hearing and seeing only the negative.

So, the divorce that you went through comes back to haunt you. The fact that the year before you had come to the celebrations with glowing wife in tow and had flaunted her to the neighbourhood is all you can think about as you see the neighbours snickering and speculating about what it is that might have caused the rift and your ultimate break-up. It consumes you and leaves you no time to do anything else, no time to enjoy your holiday. You thought you had healed, but apparently not — and the family hasn’t either; it is still an open wound. The same people who celebrated your relationship with such vigour will, with proportional condemnation, question your role in the ultimate demise of that marriage.

The money issue also plays a huge role during this period. When one member of the family generally feels that he is exploited by generally nonchalant siblings and extended members of the family, it becomes more evident during this period. One has to contribute extra on Christmas, sort of like a family bonus that you have to cough up that is not a gift. This is done with a heavy heart while other, more chilled members of the family choose merely to enjoy the fruits of your labour without any attempt on their part to plough some fruit as well. This is what you perceive in those dark moments of contemplation when you are alone.

So heated discussions may erupt around jobs and lack thereof, or lack of trying to find said gainful employment. People may be told what losers they are and what it is that they should be, but refuse to do, to remedy their financial situation. Arguments may arise on how some are raising other’s children and the parents are oblivious to this and carry on enjoying their lives with disregard for their offspring. Relationships are damaged and sometimes irreparably so.

With such a plethora of emotion that this season provokes, it is no wonder that the abuse of alcohol and drugs increases so much. All of this is done under the pretence of having Christmas fun. It is done at gatherings and parties and largely accepted as a normal part of the silly season. The problem is that silly things happen, like driving drunk, and if you are unlucky, bad things happen that will spoil and haunt your Christmas seasons forever. Bad decisions can be made with irreversible outcomes that may even be fatal, and this is all part of the season?

Although you are meant to be taking time off work to relax, you find that many people leave their jobs in the months after the Christmas break. I have often wondered out loud why this is so, and some of the people who have left their employment after this season have said that it is because of the personal reflection on which they embarked during the break. This may not have a direct link with the actual holiday but rather the longer-than-normal break and the emotions that are stirred by this period. Or maybe they were just waiting for their Christmas bonus before they left what they perceived to be crappy jobs that hindered their progress and stunted their happiness.

Your success is questioned and scrutinised during this period. Many people purchase new cars or move into new houses in this time and if you, seemingly gainfully employed, are not doing the same, this is going to be questioned. People close to you will demand to know why you are not doing the same as the other people in your neighbourhood in seemingly similar positions, and you will be obliged to give them an answer. Often you will say it is because you cannot afford these things yet, which will result in suggestions for you to change your employment, or upgrade your job so you can upgrade your life and the status of the family. You will feel pressured and comply, even if just to give the impression of compliance in order to keep the peace.

Christmas and the beginning of the new year are also a time when most feel the need for self-improvement. Resolutions are made to foster that self-improvement; such are the pressures that we place upon ourselves and our social standing. The common resolution is weight loss in order to improve one’s outward appearance to the world, thinking this is a way to gain more acceptance by society, perhaps by the opposite sex and even by employers. People may attribute spending another Christmas without a partner, or not having that dream job, to their looks and lack of confidence, which leads them to attempt these drastic changes that may, but often don’t, yield positive results.

Trust me, I do not have anything against self-improvement, but I do have a problem with the reasons people give to make such drastic “improvements” during this period. I believe that most of these decisions come from an unhappy place in their heart; they are forced decisions with the thinking that they will bring changes in fortune, whether in family life, love or career. It is when these “improvements” do not yield the desired effects that it is time again to worry, as the individual may be set back into further depression than before the attempted make-overs.

So, ladies and gentlemen, you can see what Christmas means for some of us. It is not all peaches and creams, not by a long shot. Life continues during this period for some of us and our realities even become ever more vivid. I dream of a time where I can again enjoy the Christmas holiday season as I used to in the past, but life stands in the way of all that for the moment. I have hope, like I always do, that there will be a change in our fortunes and we will be able to enjoy the Christmas pudding all over again without a single worry about what it will do to our waistlines, and what that will mean for our lives and careers. For now, I’m glad Christmas is over.

I rest
The Sumo