The festive season has a different vibe for those of us who always work through it.
Maybe I’m making too much of that. I mean, sure, people who have four or five days off or even more might be really fired up to relish the break. But many of my colleagues do go to family or friends on Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve.
Maybe it’s just me.
As you know, I also have a birthday inconveniently positioned between the two celebratory days and in the past have had a slight interest in the solstice that precedes the main events in my cultural milieu. So, overall, I could be celebrating four special days.
Instead I celebrate none.
My Scrooge-like state came upon me gradually. I loved Christmas even in my thirties. Carols. Beautifully wrapped presents. Log fires. I’ve spent the day with various friends and family members over the years. Of the friends - John M, John R, Linda, Abigail, Julia, Kirsty, Sarah – two have now died; only two am I in any sort of contact with.
Birthdays too I’ve celebrated with many of the same people – as well as various others over the years. We had a family trip to the top of a Swiss mountain for what must have been my 10th birthday. My parents took Amanda and me to dinner on my 16th. School friends came to a party one year (my 18th) and university friends another (my 21st). Abby and I held a big party for my 30th and her 29th. I had a dinner party on my 45th. That seems like enough. I worked the last two years.
As for New Year’s Eve, yes, I’ve done that. I had flu in the Lake District and food poisoning in Cork. There was a drug fuelled one in South London and a vodka RedBull fuelled one in the North of the capital. A dinner party in Oxford. A play at the Globe. I’m working this year. And on New Year’s Day.
What would I like to celebrate? I mean, I’m not big on weddings or engagements, either. Maybe I’m just not much of a celebrator. This sounds very grim. Am I really such an entire misery-boots? I think I am.
Comments