#dysfunctional

[trigger warnings: suicide, abuse, homelessness, addiction]

I put up my Christmas tree today, listening to Christmas songs, as I’ve done for years now. Christmas is a complicated time for me emotionally, and I’ve never really discussed that except with one person. Never put pen to paper to think it through. It is absolutely the most important holiday to me, and it is a VERY important holiday to me. Some people may even think I’m over zealous about the whole thing. Nicer, more complimentary people have called me a ‘Christmas Elf’. I’m very elf-like in general so it’s easy to see how that connection could be made, of course. (;

I had some absolutely horrendous Christmases in my young adult years (late teens-early 20s). One of which I was homeless. Another, I sat alone eating a mushroom pizza that came from my freezer while refusing to give in to suicidal thoughts. That was actually the first time in my young life that I was able to stand up to thoughts of suicide, and the reason? I would not let my depression take me; not that day. Not the most important holiday of any year. It didn’t matter that I was sat eating mushroom pizza from a freezer while tears streamed down my face. I would not die at my favourite time of the year.

Now, for backstory. I had a bad childhood in many ways. My mother beat me, regularly, and as with all physically abusive people she also mentally abused me. I don’t want to focus too much on that right now as that isn’t the point of writing this. It is, however, important to know. My parents also fought in horrible, ugly ways my entire childhood. My father wasn’t abusive like my mother but he was awfully insensitive (teasing me incessantly) and a product of his time: an unaware misogynist. I saw much more love from my father, however. He could be kind, supportive and wanted nothing more than to teach us everything he knew (despite the fact that he left school at 14). He wasn’t around enough though. He had a severe gambling addiction and would disappear to the 'bookies’* for entire Saturdays and Sundays (*British place where you can place bets on all sorts of things but especially horse racing). He often 'worked’ incredibly late -11pm or even later. As an adult I realized he was probably avoiding my mum and the 6 child family (of which I am the eldest) that he never agreed to/planned. He later claimed he had no idea my mother was beating me and my sisters. Perhaps some time I’ll also finally manage to write about my childhood.

My childhood was the very definition of fucked up. My family was a noisy, chaotic mess. We grew up in an environment where we learned mostly to be hateful and spiteful to each other. I grew up likely undiagnosed autistic and adhd, and with undiagnosed physical genetic illnesses (which I have now been diagnosed with). We were poor to begin with, then we weren’t quite so poor (turned out my father was stealing money).

But, here’s the thing, I have strong memories of times when my childhood wasn’t so fucked up. It really wasn’t all darkness and hatred. There were many times where it was bearable, and we enjoyed good, fun things. There were times when my parents genuinely did try. And then there were distinctly two reliable times of the year when my family would absolutely get along, where we’d be happy and kind to each other and show each other how much potential we had to love. You guessed it, one of them was Christmas (the other was Bonfire Night). It usually lasted long enough to be Christmas Eve to Boxing Day - three guaranteed glorious days of actual childhood. Where we could be children. Where we weren’t threatened into doing all of the chores or accused of being liars or sneaks or shitheads, being told we were deliberately doing things children do because we hated our mother, being shut in the garden or our room for hours, or nursing bruises, tears silently flowing down our cheeks (because crying made her angrier). We laughed, we played, we got to spend two whole days with our father without him 'running out to get milk’ never to return. My parents cooked a beautiful, delicious meal for us, we pulled crackers, we had trifle (and selection packs!). My mother dutifully filled our stockings after we went to sleep on Christmas Eve. We exchanged thoughtful, wonderful gifts that were beautifully wrapped (and only once missed the mark, but now that I’m an adult can understand where my Dad was going, such as that one year my two sisters got gameboys while I got a PDA - at age 11! I was very grown up for my age but I was horribly gutted and absolutely didn’t understand at the time as a PDA is literally useless to an 11 year old). All Christmas season we had special treats of holiday snacks under and around the tree; tins of biscuits, Quality Street, Cadbury Roses, little mixed selection boxes of salty snacks, proper trays of sticky dates that you had to pick up with a plastic two pronged fork, Turkish Delight, chocolate decorations on the tree, chocolate advent calendars all December long, hung on the wall. My Mum would bake and Do Things! I remember watching Christmas specials sat next to my dad, cracking walnuts and shelling pistachios for him (I hated them but I absolutely adored the stimmy feeling of shelling things). We would sit down as an entire family to watch films and Christmas specials. On Christmas Eve we often travelled to see my grandparents and exchange gifts with them (3 hours away in Birmingham) or some years we stayed home and had fish and chips for dinner. I remember when I was finally old enough to be given money and start buying gifts to give to my family myself. It was one of my singularly biggest joys. Wrapping them was another, and literally nothing topped watching people open what I had gotten for them.

Christmas was SO big and SO special for me growing up, that even when I accidentally caught my Mum filling our stockings, and thus discovering Father Christmas was actually an elaborate lie enacted by the entire world, that I wasn’t even upset. (I hate lies more than anything). I didn’t yell out and tell my Mum that I saw her (with my lack of impulse control if it were anything else I would have), I didn’t tell my younger sisters (of which there were still only two of them at the time); I snuck back quietly into my bed and lay there awake, excitedly knowing that our stockings were coming. I even held my breath and squeezed my eyes tight when I heard her come into our room sometime later to place them in our beds. Then, I eventually fell asleep and acted excited and surprised just like my two sisters in the room that we shared.

We even had two Christmas trees in my house growing up. One was for my Mum to decorate (she was very particular about how her tree looked; as I am now). The other was smaller, and obviously cheaper but me and my two sisters got to decorate it however we wanted with whatever gaudy stuff we cared to. Some years later after my brothers arrived they got to do that tree and I graduated to help my Mum and learn her special tree decorating techniques. It was one of the very few things I ever got to share with my mother. (Other than her broken DNA of course). I loved every moment of decorating that tree with her.

My 15th year my parents finally split up in a series of explosive, ugly fighting that drew me into the whole mess. For months physical fights went on as my mother would come home and lash out at my father. My Dad would tell me things no daughter should ever have to hear. I almost dropped out of school. The first Christmas without my mother was still as special as my father and I were able to pull together and make it for my siblings. My 16th year I had a fight over the phone with my father and never went home again. I thought he’d kicked me out. I didn’t speak to him for two years, so I had no reason to think otherwise. I only saw two of my siblings (my sisters) at school. I saw my youngest three siblings only a handful of times in those two years as I worked for my mother’s boyfriend and saw them when she occasionally deigned to have them for a weekend.

In those two years I celebrated Christmas with my teenage boyfriend’s family. His grandma had Alzheimer’s and they were very middle class compared to my family. They had smoked salmon and champagne for breakfast on Christmas Day. It was weird and I felt horribly uncomfortable but I was immensely grateful for them inviting me into their own traditions and space. It was as full of love and kindness as my own family Christmases had been as I grew up.

At 18 I reconciled with my Dad and finally began to cut ties with my toxic mother as I realized she had no hold over me and I owed her nothing. I got to spend one more Christmas with my proper family. It was weird for me. And awkward. Only my Dad’s girlfriend had gotten me a present, not that that was the reason I was there of course, but it was very clear that it had been far too long and I was no longer a part of my family. It broke my heart. I never went back for another Christmas. I lived too far away (I’d moved to Wales) and it was much, much too painful to be reminded of what was no longer mine. My youngest siblings grew up without me and to this day I am in tears writing this.

While as an adult I’ve had long streams of friends, both in person, and online that tell tales of family tension and strife on holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving. Of terrible arguments, of actual physical fights (which are rare in most families), of the stress involved with continuing family traditions and getting ready for it all. While I’ve spent my entire adult life listening to other people’s holiday stories like this, mine is an exact polar opposite. It was one thing that allowed my family to love each other, to show that love and to celebrate it.

And OH, how I love Christmas.

Christmas was so awfully hard for me for a few years, with the exception of one year where I had roommates and we made our own beautiful little Christmas.

I told myself one day I would take it back and it would be mine. I never planned to have a family; I never wanted to burden anyone with my brutal family 'legacy’, but I knew Christmas would be mine once again. No matter how poor I was I always put up decorations. Even if it was just the few I’d managed to hold on to. Even the year I was briefly homeless. It was a symbol of how I knew Christmas would be special for me again. It was warmth.

This will mark the 11th year Christmas has been mine again. With the help of the love of my life, we have built our own Christmas. Merged some traditions, created new ones. I celebrate with his family on the actual day, even if it’s just over Skype, as it was one year. We put up our beautiful tree, the two of us (which used to be a sad little Charlie Brown tree after we first moved to Canada and had very little money). It’s always been a fake tree because that’s what I grew up with (except for that one year when I was about 6 or 7 and I was horribly allergic) and its what I believe in. M and his family have embraced my fevered passion for the holiday; never once complaining, mocking me or questioning me. The few close friends I have now, have even welcomed my excitement and intensity. I just can’t get enough of anything Christmas, whether it’s the lights everywhere (my sisters and I would count Christmas trees in windows as we entered the Birmingham outskirts, until we got to my Nan’s house), the smells, the tastes, the baking, the decorating, the music, the films, the teevee specials, the shopping, the wrapping, the giving, the cooking, the snacks or even the commerciality of it all. I could go on forever. I know the one sister I still speak to regularly is the exact same way with Christmas and I like to imagine it is for similar reasons as I. She has a son now, and we exchange gifts, over the many thousands of miles that separate us.

Christmas is so intensely special for me, and while the universe and I have always known why, now you will too.