How I'm gearing up for my worst Christmas yet

I think I'll miss this one this year

It started in early November. The season.

Not the Christmas season: the season of people asking me what I’m doing for Christmas/if I’m excited about Christmas/whether I’m ready for Christmas.

I knew it was coming. I tried to brace myself.

And then someone I don’t know very well asked me if I had any fun festive plans and I had to be a grown up and not scream “I’LL NEVER HAVE FUN FESTIVE PLANS AGAIN” into their innocent, bewildered face.

It’s probably different — maybe harder, in some ways — when you have close family and friends who want to celebrate while you’re grieving.

But it really sucks to be on your own for the first Christmas without your mum.

This isn’t only the first Christmas that my mum isn’t alive for, it’s the first one I’ve ever spent apart from her, and the precedent for the rest of my life (bad).

I don’t have anyone else to eat turkey and roast potatoes with and the healthy, self-esteem boosting way I’ve chosen to deal with that is by telling myself, “There’s eight billion people on the planet and not one of them wants to spend Christmas with me”.

(Hard to believe, isn’t it? Self pity is usually so attractive.)

My mum loved Christmas and did her best to enjoy it even after her parents died, even when Covid hit, even when she was horribly ill.

Last year, she dramatically declared that Christmas 2023 could be her last but — back when it seemed like her main problem was anaemia — I couldn’t imagine that being true.

Now she’s been proven correct, I have a lot of regrets about it not being perfect, or even very good.

If we weren’t still in a pandemic, I might have desperately sought out an invitation this year, infiltrated someone else’s family gathering as they pretended I was welcome, too devastated about my mum’s death to care if I was wanted or not.

But I would have known they hadn’t sought me out, that most of the people who sent me kind messages after she died either assumed I had plans for Christmas, didn’t want to know, or didn’t think about me either way.

An acquaintance actually told me they wouldn’t mind spending some time alone at Christmas because it can be so stressful when you have a lot of people around you.

I somehow managed to not scream in their face either, despite the chasm between the loneliness of a major bereavement and the minor annoyance of a loud family.

Last year, I read an article about how it’s fun to spend the festive season on your own and maybe that’s true if it’s by choice but it doesn’t sound fun to go for a walk and have a bubble bath and try not to think about the fact that you’re no longer special to anyone within a 50-mile radius.

I don’t get any satisfaction from the fact that I knew it would be like this when my mum died. I dreaded being on my own, couldn’t imagine how I’d cope with it and never wanted to have to.

For years, I turned my head away from those Age Concern “No one should have no one” posters, a lump forming in my throat.

I always used to feel sorry for people who spent Christmas alone, or who went to the pub for a pint on their own and then walked home to an empty house.

I couldn’t bear to think about them, what sad specimens they were, felt acutely aware that I was just one loss away from becoming one of their tribe and was desperate not to be.

A couple of people at grief support groups have suggested I could volunteer at a soup kitchen and I’m sure it’s good to get out of your head, connect with others and be of service.

But I’m too Covid-averse to mix with large groups and too chronically ill to chop vegetables and plate up roasties on an industrial scale.

If the global situation was different or I had a death wish, I might go on holiday; escape everything I’ve ever known so it all feels less painful.

Maybe there will come a time when re-living memories and re-creating traditions doesn’t feel like torture but right now, the thought of doing the same things as I did with my mum makes me so weak and shaky I can barely breathe.

Another complicating factor is that there’s far less support available over Christmas: people who run online grief support groups understandably don’t want to do so during holiday weeks, and people who make the podcasts I constantly play to distract my mind usually take time off, too.

So I’m about to navigate the trickiest moments of my grief so far with less support than I’ve ever had.

I tell myself it’s just one day but it isn’t, is it? It’s at least a month and a half of hype, decades of memories and a minefield of triggers that seem designed to make life unbearable (but, you know, enjoy!)

Like so many aspects of grief, it feels like a cruel and unusual punishment.

The key might be, as I should have known considering what I named this newsletter, to lower my expectations to subterranean levels.

To be grateful I’m still breathing and have a roof over my head.

To plan something simple and different from what I used to do with my mum.

I’ve ordered some fancy miniature brownies and plan to watch Thelma or Heathers or The Godfather, depending on how dark my mood gets, to talk to my dad, text some friends and think about everyone else who won’t be having the best day of their life, for whatever reason.

I’ll be right there with you.