Christmas is not one of the weird, awkward holidays that move around like Easter – it sits, dependably, on the 25th of December every year. However, as the years roll by, our experiences of Christmas change. Our lives go through different phases, and people come and go, with our paths crossing perhaps for a season or a few years, or longer. These phases and people leave their marks, and this includes on our Christmases.
When you’re a kid, Christmas is exciting. Some years there were more presents under the tree, some years fewer, but no matter the financial situation, we’d spend the day as a family. We’d eat too much food, play board games, see family, and just have a holly jolly family day. Christmas should be magical for kids, and the things we remember when we’re young are the fact that Granny would always be there, the fact that we would play games together, the relaxed focus on each other.
As a teenager, the shine wears off a little. We rub along with our families as best we can, but we start prioritising different things, and there are inevitably tensions. Gifts can be a bit of a minefield – teenagers are probably beyond the point of getting toys for Christmas, but the kind of practical gifts that are good for adults won’t be appreciated yet. When I was 18, I received a blanket as a gift, which I was somewhat nonplussed by – up until that point, it had never occurred to me that I’d need my own blankets; they were always a shared family item. It ended up being a firm favourite that I used for many years.
When you reach university, the rules of the game change again. You might have multiple Christmases – a flat Christmas, a Friendmas, society Christmas dinners, sports club meals, the list goes on. These can be some of the most enjoyable and memorable university experiences. You get to share your traditions with new people and take some of theirs into yourself, a particular form of social experience that enriches you. Then you go home and do it all again with family. Christmas holidays from university can be a weird amalgamation of emotions. Familiarity, comfort, nostalgia, the relief that comes alongside not having to plan, shop for, and cook every single meal for yourself. But alongside that comes the growing realisation that your life has grown outside your family. Your childhood bedroom feels small in an intangible way. You miss your friends, maybe a partner. It’s easier to notice uneasy undercurrents in Christmas dinner conversations; you slowly become aware of the family members with problematic opinions. University can feel like living two lives, one term-time life and one non-term-time life, and that can be hard to manage.
After you graduate, the options really open up. Maybe you’ll stay in a terrible house share while you work your first job after university, and Christmas will be spent in the office, unable to get the day off as the lowest rung on the corporate ladder. Maybe you’ve been priced out of the train ticket home, your mum turned your bedroom into a sewing room, you’d need to sleep on the sofa, and your favourite cousin won’t be there this year anyway. Perhaps you’re navigating the experience of going to Christmas at a partner’s family’s house for the first time and trying to gauge the tone of the day. Do they open presents in the morning like a normal family, or are they kept until after Christmas dinner, which they inexplicably have at midday, not 6pm like at home? Post-graduation Christmas can be a weird experience.
As you get a bit older and you and your friends start to settle into your lives, Friendmas makes a resurgence, but this time you can buy the £8 bottles of wine and not just the £3.50 bottles. Drinks, party games, maybe the host got a little bit fancy and tried something other than turkey for the centrepiece. The pressure of a good Friendmas is extremely low; you’ve known each other for a long time, and you’re all just there to enjoy yourselves. These might not be core memories like the first few Friendmas’ were, but they will be warm and toasty and be a great way to end the year.
Time continues to move forward. The friendship group is getting married and having children. You have comfortable, cosy homes that have been curated to your liking. When you have your own children, Christmas becomes about making it special for them. Perhaps your siblings have kids now, and you all go back to your parents’ house to make a big fuss of them. For single people or childless couples, Christmas stops being something you can have too much control over because of the focus on kids. My personal approach is to spend the day with my partner, make something interesting for breakfast, have all together too many snacks, and make enough Christmas dinner to eat it for the rest of the week. We’ll watch some favourite movies (The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Die Hard – the Christmas classics), maybe go for a walk, and try to have a day that is free of external expectations.
I’m sure it won’t be long before Christmas changes its form again. I don’t know what it will have in store for me, but I do know that I’ll continue to care about the same things – staying in my pyjamas, eating vast amounts of food, and texting everyone I love to remind them that I am thinking about them.
Featured image credit: Barry Plott via Pexels
Student journalist & freelance writer. Check out Quick Play, where I review video games that are 10 hours or less.
