I haven't mentioned this before. I'm not really that bothered about Christmas. Any of it. I loved it when I was a kid, but since I left home for university it's become less of a thing for me. Having been dragged along to the families of 2 exes for Christmas, I despise the family part (I hardly speak to my own family - why the fuck would I want to hang out with somebody else's?) I have plenty of stories of shit Christmases, all in the company of others when I've had to use somebody else's schedule ("OK, so at 9am we'll all get up and have breakfast. After that we'll open the pressies, one each, clockwise, youngest first. Then we'll have a cup of tea and some cake. The we'll go for a walk [why the fuck does everybody think that it's a good idea to go for a walk on Christmas day, anyway? It's not something that usually happens, nobody really enjoys it, and you end up with nothing more than achy legs and wind pain in your ears]. After our walk - ooh, bracing! - we'll a) go to the restaurant b) sit at the table for Christmas dinner. If option a) we will then discuss the merits and demerits of each dish, and compare to the place we went to last year. If b), we will fight over the best bits of turkey. During dinner, we'll tell shit stories and make fun of the youngest member of the family. [and hopefully I will drink enough to make the rest of the day less painful]. At some point during the meal, we'll pull crackers and proceed to a) put on a ´present face´for the object inside, b) groan at the joke, c) put on the silly paper hat. [Note: The paper hats will stay on for the rest of the day, until you go into the bathroom and catch sight of your red, drunk face and realise what a complete and utter prick you look like] "So, for the rest of the day, we'll just relax and enjoy each other's company!" I enjoyed my family Christmases when I was a kid because there wasn't so much of the 'imposed fun' that I've experienced. We would get up, eat, open stuff, then do whatever. It was usually Boxing Day (the 26th of December, for my non-Brit readers) when the other family members would visit, and even then it was more of a sit down with a cup of tea and some cake while chatting about usual stuff and opening any gifts. I don't remember any problems coming up from this Christmas arrangement, probably because there was no tight schedule or expectations. Compare the first (pretty much) 17 Christmases of my life to this experience I had while spending the holiday with an ex and his family a few years ago...
A couple of weeks before, it was all agreed over the phone. We would travel down to their place and stay the weekend. His parents agreed to buy Christmas lunch and also tickets to the football the following day. So, we travelled, we stayed, and it was lunchtime. Food was ok - a bit bland, but as good as you can expect an average carvery to create on Christmas day - and it was time to pay. Bear in mind that the parents had offered to pay already. There was a frosty silence as the mother glared at us. Apparently, the phrase "We'll take care of lunch" had taken on a new meaning - "we'll SAY that we're going to pay, but actually we want YOU to pay almost 300 quid for the meal at the excessively-priced place that WE chose to bring you and a few other random relatives to". The mother glared more, I went to the bathroom. I came back to her tutting as ex's dad slapped down his credit card and she talked to my ex like he was 5 (at the time he was over 30, although his backbone was barely formed). She reasoned that as he'd reneged on his promise (ha!) to pay for lunch, he now had to pay the football tickets. Which she'd previously said were a gift. Obviously being the invertebrate that he was (probably still is, to be fair), he whipped out the cash and she was placated for the time being.
Then there's the time I spent Christmas with another ex and his mum. The schedule of that day involved getting up early, opening stuff, and then settling down in front of the TV. For the rest of the day. The majority of TV is brain-rotting at the best of times, let alone all the million Christmas specials. Don't get me wrong, there are a few exceptions (very few), but the majority of TV is absloute shite. So here I was, trapped in the home of a telly-addicted old woman and her dribbling prat (although I hadn't yet noticed this part) of a son, having to watch the specials of every single fucking soap running, plus a load of other shit chat shows and light entertainment bollocks. I tentatively mentioned that my friend (who luckily lived round the corner) wanted to meet up. I was met with a look of disdain from my ex, who seemed unable to comprehend why I didn't want my brain cells to degenerate any further, and a look from his mum which I could only read as one that humoured me, like I was a curiosity for not being sucked into telly land. I got the fuck out of there as soon as I could, rushed round to my mate's place, and got stuck into a bottle of Jameson's with her. When I returned to the house of TV, the occupants were in the exact same places as when I left, and for I knew the same shite was on the telly.
Other Christmases I've had in recent years have pissed all over those forced family occasions. In 2008 I was travelling, and spent the Christmas in London with my aunt and family (and again no stupid imposed structure, just food, slobbing and wine), followed by a solo bus journey across Europe which ended up with me spending New Years Eve in Budapest, having dinner with an Australian family I had befriended at the hostel where I was staying. I actually wrote all about it on my old blogger blog, first post of which is here:
http://el-scenic-route.blogspot.com/2008/12/on-road.html
In 2009 I worked on the 25th - Russian Christmas isn't until January, and when faced with two holiday options, I chose the one which gave me NYE, and Russian Christmas off. I watched films with my Russian friends, I ate tasty stuff, and I had a wonderfully relaxed season, and one of my best ever Christmases.
In 2010, I had what could be described as an adventure. An expensive adventure. My original plan was to fly from Moscow to London, get a ferry from Harwich to Hoek-van-Holland, trains down through the Netherlands, Belgium and France, and then a final train down to where my mum lives in south-east Spain. It started off with a ridiculous snowstorm in London. It was so snowy, it was impossible for them to land anything, so as a result my flight, which should have departed at 01:35 or something like that, was cancelled. I spent a night in the airport, and bought a new flight, which was also delayed to within an inch of everyone's patience before ebing cancelled. The airline put myself and some other fugitives up in a hotel, and we played the waiting game. Eventually, on day 3, we flew on a jumbo jet with a load of other cancelled flights. Ours was the only flight which got a hotel - everyone else had been sleeping on the airport floor for the last 2 nights. I arrived in London the 23rd, 2 days behind schedule. I had to leave my bags in a storage facility, and run off to the consualte building to get a renewed Russian visa, before heading down to Harwich to get my (rescheduled) ferry. Obviously, the ferry departed late, and even more obviously, it was delayed in the water, so it reached Hoek approximately 5 hours later that it should have done. From the ferry terminal I ran to a waiting train which took me to Rotterdam. Then I got a trian from Rotterdam to Brussels. This train was, of course, delayed. I arrived in Brussels at about 11pm, just in time to have solidly missed the final train to Paris, and also for the the train station to be starting to close. I was then turfed out onto the streets of Brussels in search of a hotel. In a blizzard. After a few overpriced queries, pathetic looking me managed to get a 75% off deal in a place run by a guy who seemed delighted to be able to practice his English at that hour of night.
The following morning I made use of the buffet (filling up my handbag with bread, meat and cheese) and set off. As my finances were running low, I couldn't afford to get the fast train to Paris, and ended up taking a series of 4 regional trains. Of course, they were ALL delayed, and I ended up arriving in Paris about 7 hours later. This was the week of the Eurostar closure, and Gare du Nord was literally jammed with people. I fought my way to a counter to ask if there was another train to Barcelona. They said no. They said that the train departed from Austerlitz, but it was full. I asked if I could get a ticket for the next day, and they responded in the negative. Out of frustration more than anything else, I went to Austerlitz just for the hell of it. Lucky I had, because the ticket seller guy there was lovely, and got me on the train to Barcelona that evening.
It arrived on the morning of the 25th, and now all I had to do was get a regional train down to Murcia, and then another regional from there to my mum's town. I got my ticket sorted out, called my mum to let her know what was going on, and began to wait. After a little while, I became aware that my iPhone was missing - some fucker had pickpocketed me. Happy I was not. To cut a long story short, I arrived at my mum's place at about 8pm, and she fed me, watered me, and I went to sleep. Two days later I left again, to catch trains all across Europe (Spain to Switzerland to Germany to Czech Republic to Hungary to Romania [the train between these two was where I spent NYE, in the company of a gypsy family and a bloke of about 5 different nationalities]) to Moldova to Russia). Despite losing my phone, this has to be one of my favourite Christmases ever.
