It’ll be scary this Christmas.

For so many people, struggling to make ends meet.

Worried about what fresh hell 2021 is going to bring…

I’m lucky enough not to be scared about having enough food, or heat or presents.

But I am very much afraid about being on my own.

Every year I have offered to share the day with my ex, and he’s said no. He’s said the day itself isn’t that important to him. What he meant was he had other plans…

This year suddenly it IS important to him – and it is undeniably His Turn. And he doesn’t want to share it because all of those presents will be ‘too much for the kids’. Personally I think it would be their idea of heaven, but I am now overruled by the circumstance of recent history I didn’t choose, and the universal law of turns.

And of course, OF COURSE it’s the year I can’t see my family, 3 hours down the motorway and shielding still. I haven’t seen them in nearly a year.

It IS only a day, I know in my head. And I know I’ll see the Smalls the next day, and I know I have to share and he’s their parent too, and that really it’s the best thing all round – but I am still scared to wake up by myself.

I’m scared in my heart.

Because Christmas is a cornerstone of childhood, a cornerstone of memory, a cornerstone of MAGIC – a dying commodity. It IS important. To me. And I am missing it.

I think that’s what I’m most afraid of. Of missing it. And not just Christmas – all of it. It slides away so very quickly, doesn’t it?

My Big Small is 9, and on the final cusp of belief, and I’m so conscious that I don’t have long left. I am more than halfway through my time with her. I have maybe three or four Christmases before she’s lost to monosyllabic teenagehood and a phone screen.

This year has been a huge change, the turn from 8-9, summed up in a Christmas list that falls directly between toys and teen stuff, and includes both Polly Pocket and leopard print jeans. She’s growing up. And I feel slightly panicked by how fast it’s happened, how much I’ve forgotten already, and at the risk of sounding like a white rabbit – how little TIME there is.

And in the time left half of the Christmases won’t even be mine. And then it’ll be gone. This incredible season where magic is real, for children – made so by communal cooperation and parental hard work. This time of year where I can actually feel it, too, where I almost believe in it – just for a moment, through them. And I really, really want magic to be real. This year I NEED it to be real.

I suppose I also feel much the same way about summers. About weekends. That there is only so much childhood left. And I am afraid I have not made the most of it, and that I have not made the right memories, the right choices, the right impact. That I’m not doing any of it right and there are no do-overs. When it comes down to it maybe I am still afraid of who I am when I am not their mother. Who I will be. What there will be left over when they are grown and gone. Whether I’ll still be able to taste magic.

And of course it is another milestone where I suddenly look up and in at THEM being the perfect family I wanted, and worked for, and stayed too long trying to achieve, and finally broke for – and I am shocked it still has the power to hurt me, years down the line – and I am afraid I will never actually get over it. Layers on layers of fear…

I wish things were different, corona-wise, and that I could do what I wanted to do on Christmas Day, which was to spend some time doing something PRACTICAL for people who are afraid for much better reasons than me, volunteering somewhere and taking a much needed lesson in perspective, humility and GRATITUDE. But we are where we are.

Christmas is going to look a bit different for everyone this year. I think it just means we have to work a little bit harder to feel the magic. And to MAKE it. In our own way, on our our own timetables. And sometimes on our own.

xxxx

Ideas for places to donate: Mind Christmas Appeal, Shelter Christmas HopeWomen’s Aid – Gift of HopeFind a Foodbank – The Trussel Trust