an important occasion, and you do need to use some tact here. Your mum’s roast turkey may well be dry and tasteless, but it’s only for one day, so buck up and eat up.
Have it at your place. In all the worry about which grand-parents you will descend on, it’s easy to overlook the possibility of just you and your kids staying in your own home and starting a tradition there. It can feel a little quiet compared with the hoards of family members usually present at this time, but it can be a lot less stressful—and a lot cheaper because you won’t feel obliged to buy stocking fillers for all fifty of your in-laws or bring a couple of bottles of sherry for great-granny, so bear this in mind if you are a bit strapped for cash one year.
Too many cooks can spoil the Christmas dinner. If you spend Christmas with your parents or in-laws, chances are that Christmas dinner will be taken care of by them. My advice: offer to help as much as possible, do exactly as you are told and don’t even think about doing it your own way. You may prefer roast potatoes to be irregular, but if the head chef says ‘perfect one-inch cubes’ then perfect one-inch cubes it is. You can have your irregular ones next week, at home.
Get some breathing space. It can get very claustrophobic in an overheated house, with overheated people telling overheated stories, so make sure you get outside as often as you can, to clear the fug and refresh yourself. This is essential for kids as well, who can go completely nuts with all the excitement, chocolate and over-zealous relatives. Allow them to let off some steam outside, even if there’s a blizzard out there, and they’ll be ready for the next round of ‘cover Uncle Julian in cushions and jump on him’ before long.
Chip in. Christmas is a very expensive time of year, even if you take all the presents out of the equation: just feeding all of those relatives can cost enough to build the extension you need, and the alcohol bill can be prohibitive. You must, must make sure you all chip in, whether it’s cooking a meal or two, providing some drink or keeping the snack and nibbles supplies coming. Ask whoever is hosting the event what you can do to contribute—some people want to handle all the food or wine themselves, and you might be treading on toes.
Limit the presents. We tried this last year, and it almost worked (some people, like me, were a bit naughty and exceeded their limit, because there was something irresistible they just had to give the kids). Try limiting every family member to giving only one present, which can’t cost more than a tenner. Not one present per person, but one in total, and do a lucky dip to decide who gives to whom. Bags not my father-in-law again! For kids this is almost impossible—there are so many fantastic toys, books and games to give them—but if you can even set yourselves a ‘no more than three presents per child’ limit you will find that it’s less of a distasteful consumerism orgy, and more of an exciting, happy time with some lovely gifts being exchanged and appreciated.
Wait for the sales. We started doing this about three years ago and I’m very glad we did: my husband and I give each other one very small, cheap present on Christmas Day, and then something bigger for each other, or for the house, when the January sales start. This works for our kids too, and we now give our kids a couple of small presents each on the day (which always rises to about twenty by the time the rest of the family has thrown theirs under the tree too) and let them choose a couple more things they would really like when they go down to half-price two days later. This saves us a fortune, and it makes the number of presents they receive on Christmas Day more reasonable.
Combining traditions. I have found this to be a bit of a problem, because my family does Christmas so differently to my husband’s. I prefer some of their ways, but not others, and I sometimes feel that I’m not having a ‘proper’ Christmas, as I remember it, at all. I also feel uncomfortable about some of their traditions being passed onto my kids, because I’d like them to do it ‘our’ way. We get over these hurdles by following the rituals wherever we spend Christmas, and this variety year on year seems to be enough to give us both a little of the childhood we remember, and to expose our kids to different ways of celebrating the occasion. (But I still think my way is better, of course!)
Start your own traditions. The lovely thing about starting your own family is that you can start up some new traditions. Presents before breakfast, one present every hour, eating Christmas dinner in your new Christmas underpants and socks, going for a long walk afterwards, or whatever it is. Why stick to what you’ve always known, and maybe don’t even like? It’s your family, so stay at home for a change and do it your way!
It’s a real shame that Christmas has become such an endurance test for so many families, but you don’t have to be sucked into the distasteful world of commercial excess and lavish gift-giving. Stick to your principles, cut down on everything, and enjoy a relaxing family holiday all together. Because behind the presents, television marathons, brandy butter, party poppers, nuts, mince pies, carol singing and hangovers, whatever your religious beliefs or family hang-ups, this is an opportunity for you all to be together—and that happens far too little in most families. Season’s greetings to you all…
While we’re here, we should probably take a peek at what lurks in the space under the stairs. Some pretty grimy things, I suspect, but those are always fun to uncover…
Before Harry Potter moved in and complicated matters, the space under most people’s staircases was one of two things: it was either a downstairs toilet—you know the ones, where your knees hit the wall opposite when you sit on the loo and the ‘basin’ is actually a triangular teacup attached to the wall with dolls’ house taps above it, guaranteed to splash water all over your crotch however careful you are—or a hideous mess. Mine is the latter. Under my stairs lurks everything from the under-used hoover and ironing board to several mismatched tennis rackets, climbing boots, a pram raincover, a torch, several tennis balls, random gloves and broken pairs of sunglasses and about two hundred spiders. It is where we throw all those bits and pieces we have no idea what to do with, or don’t want to have to deal with. There are, of course, houses where this place has been transformed into a stunning feature, with built-in shelving, subtle lighting and hidden storage space for colour-coordinated shoes. But that’s not my experience, and probably not yours.
For the purposes of this book, the cupboard under the stairs will house all those family issues you would rather not deal with. It’s the place where skeletons lurk, waiting to come out and disrupt the harmony, along with arguments waiting to happen, bits of unfinished business needing completion, and enough worries to fill a mansion house, let alone the two square metres we’ve got to play with. As with anywhere that gathers dust and festers slowly into an unhygienic, disorganised, arachnid-infested disaster zone, we must occasionally take a deep breath—it’s pretty airless and smelly—arm ourselves with a torch and a broom, and face what lies within. It’s scary, it will result in a few shrieks, but maybe also contains some happy discoveries, and it will almost certainly make you feel better by the end of it.
Skeletons: Leave ‘em in or get ‘em out?
Every relationship brings some skeletons with it. These remains of loves, lives and issues past can cohabit with the meatier members
