Marian Keyes
It’s not that I hate Christmas—it being the season of unlimited chocolate, how could I? And, of course, the presents are nice. Not to mention the trifle on Christmas Day. And it’s always cheery to see over-refreshed businessmen wearing big, mad, red antlers, swaying on the train home, oblivious to their headgear.
But, as my mother (devout churchgoer) often reminds me, Christmas isn’t just about selection boxes and shower gel/body lotion sets of Tresor. No indeed, she’s absolutely right; Christmas is about hard, bloody work.
I’m not even talking about having to get up before dawn on the big day to stuff turkeys and peel eight thousand potatoes. (Due to an excellent arrangement I have with my mother, we are both in denial about my being an adult. She’s the mother, she does the cooking and she has never actually eaten something I’ve made. Never. Mind you, most people wouldn’t.)
No. What kills me about Christmas is having to send cards. What is it about this particular task that makes me want to end my life? Sadness that there are so many people I don’t see anymore? To my shame, it’s more like the sheer life-sapping tedium of it all. Especially when people have long addresses. (The worst offenders are those with house names— Traveller’s Rest, Formentura Revisited, etc. It’s just a waste! A waste of ink, a waste of space, and a waste of an extra ten precious seconds of my time!)
I consider my list, an accumulation of dozens and dozens of people whom I think of fondly but haven’t seen for fifteen years and no longer have anything in common with, and a terrible lassitude overtakes me. I wish for a small but harmless domestic explosion, anything to get out of doing it. I could explain next year. “Sorry I sent no card last year, but our clothes horse blew up. We were picking knickers off the hedges well into the new year!”
Then there’s the challenge of trying to remember the names of people’s partners. If they’re still with them, that is. Because, although I might be dying to ask, “Are you still with that weird bloke with the rabbit fixation and the beard that looks like pubic hair?” I just can’t. I’m supposed to know. And what if they’ve had children? A vague half memory surfaces of being sent a photo of a squashed-looking newborn, along with a card saying, “The world welcomes baby Agatha.” Or was it baby Tariq? Or—Christ!—was it a dog this lot got? However, in such murky circumstances, I’ve found that a catchall “Hope you and the gang are well” usually suffices.
Far trickier is getting the tone right—to convey a message of warmhearted goodwill so that when they open the card they’ll smile and say, “Aww look, one from Marian. Isn’t she lovely?” BUT—and it’s a very big “but”—without being so pally that they’ll spontaneously lift the phone and arrange a night out after not having seen me for over a decade.
And so I get to thinking guiltily, this year, would it be so bad if I didn’t… ? Who’d miss a card from me when everyone gets so many?
And that’s it! The decision is made! With a light heart I tell Himself, “I’m not sending Christmas cards this year. Life is too short.”
“Fine,” he says. “You’ve enough on your plate.” I study him carefully to see if he’s being sarcastic, and I can’t be sure, so I go away. Which is when I start thinking, But I really like so-and-so. I want to stay in touch with her, not actually to see her of course, but I wouldn’t like us to lose touch. But if I send one to her and don’t send one to her sister, then her sister will think I’ve snubbed her, which of course I will have, but I wouldn’t like her to think I had…
The house is filled with Himself’s non-reproachfulness. Just because he’s sitting at a table methodically inscribing cards to everyone he’s ever met doesn’t mean he’s judging me for not sending any. Nevertheless, my guilt builds and builds.
Some people get around the hell of card-writing by sending what they insist on calling a “round-robin letter,” typed in fake-handwritten text. These letters usually begin, “Hello, valued friend.” Or, rather, “Hello, valued friend.” And then the writer tells you about all the fabulous things they’ve done over the past year, with a load of people you’ve never heard of. “Back in June, Lacey, Cain, and I did a Jin Shin Jyutsu workshop! We’re still walking funny!” And I’m thinking, “Who’s Lacey? Who’s Cain? What’s Jin Shin Jyutsu?”
These letters always end with something like “Love, light, and blessings to your loved ones and you,” the subtext being, “Whoever the hell you are.”
Obviously, it’s an idea… I could knock something up on the computer, lash out a hundred copies, and send them off. Mind you, I’d still have to write the bloody envelopes, never having mastered the printed label thing. That still wouldn’t get around the long address, Traveller’s Rest–type problem.
Anyway, they’re kind of creepy and too impersonal and… and… American. Despite my objection to doing Christmas cards, I still prefer to handwrite a personal message. Even if it’s the same one on each card. Even if it’s always, “We really”—with the really underlined—“must get together thisyear.”
Then the post yields up the first card of the season, saying “We really”—with the really underlined— “must get together this year.” And I like the person it’s from—although not enough to see them, of course—so I think, I’ll just send one back to them. Then the next day, five cards arrive, and I’m fond of these people, too, so I dash off five “Really”—with the really underlined—“must get together this year”s. And then I’m thinking of all the people I haven’t sent cards to, and the torment is bad. And anyway, the next day the post brings an avalanche of “We really must get together this year”s, and I buckle.
I walk into the room where Himself is sitting, innocently watching telly or whatever, and yell at him, “OKAY THEN, I’LL WRITE THE BLOODY THINGS. HAPPY NOW?”