The fact that I prefer January to December might just be the most contentious thing you’ll ever find out about me. December is everything we work towards, it’s the culmination of the year, a chance to drown your sorrows and celebrate your successes one dodgy drinks party at a time.
Living for December is the annual equivalent of living for the weekend. It is like a month of Friday nights – you have lofty aspirations but, inevitably, you’re tired-drunk by 9pm and on your way home in an Uber you can’t really afford. And, like Friday night, the more you plan, the more you expect, the more likely it is to go wrong and disappoint you.
As the adult child of separated parents (also known as an ACOD – adult child of divorce), this has been my experience of Christmas for some time now. Things get so Political with a capital P that I wonder whether it might be more relaxing to be a member of the Johnson family and I always feel as though the universe has short changed me somehow.
Last year was particularly bad for reasons I won’t bore you with and it made me realise that, every year since my teens, no matter how beautiful my tree is, how many gifts I buy, how hopeful I am determined to be or how many times I remind myself of the fact that I am in so many ways fortunate and privileged something has always gone very wrong.
I am financially stable in my own right, I am not homeless, I have a loving partner and friends so brilliant that I often wonder what I’ve done to deserve them, so it not only feels Scroogey to admit how much December throws me off course but ungrateful.
So, every year, I would blank out unpleasant memories of Decembers past and force myself to believe I could have a perfect Christmas. Far from this being proof that I am, in fact, a masochist, humans optimism bias is a well-known psychological phenomenon.
Finally, the penny dropped. I realised that my years follow a pattern. In August, I begin to anxiously anticipate people asking me what I’m doing for Christmas. In October, I look at flights to faraway places and fantasise about opting out. In November, my stress levels crescendo. By December, I’m faking excitement at social obligations and secretly willing it all to be over.
My true feelings about Christmas are covertly communicated with a handful of people. My sister (the only person in the world who goes through exactly what I do at this time of year) and two of my best friends (also ACODs). We are able to say the unsayable to each other and it’s liberating.
‘F**k this time of year’ BFF 1 recently texted me ‘it’s so stressful’.
‘IKR’ I replied, ‘I feel like my heart is made of coal but it’s genuinely easier not to get involved than it is to join in the hype and end up disappointed’.
‘Yep!’ the tiny text bubble zinged back into the thread ‘this year choice is…be alone, try to find out what dad and his new GF are doing or just opt out.’
‘Why didn’t I book flights in the summer’ I clap back ‘mum will be with new bf, dad wants to be alone as per and I feel guilty even though I’ve done nothing wrong’.
In a similar conversation over drinks with BFF 2 she confirmed that she was opting out once and for all. ‘Was dreading it so I’m going to Costa Rica…put it on a credit card. Can’t do it again. Too stressful. I just want to come back when it’s over’.
Festive season stress is very real. Studies have shown that only 10 percent of people report no stress at all during the Christmas period. Among the key triggers for spiking stress at this time of year are financial pressures, maintaining exercise and healthy eating regimes at a time of expected excess and, my own personal nuclear button ‘negotiating the interpersonal dynamics of family’.
Other studies (like this one conducted at Coventry University) have shown that while most people suffer from Christmas stress, it is generally completely ignored.
One of its authors, Rob Wilde, pointed out that Christmas as an adult means ‘being put in the role of the child’ which is trying in and off itself. But, added to that, he explained that because December – the end of the year – is a nostalgic period of reflection, it is when ‘all the things you’ve been keeping covered up over the year come back at you’. That might be the loss of loved ones, divorce and/or breakups.
Like pretty much everything, December, Christmas and New Year are now more than just holidays. They are now Instagram opportunities with serious cultural capital. Social media is a pressure cooker in which all of our hopes, fears and experiences are publicly cultivated.
If you didn’t know better, you might actually believe that December was invented for social media. Fairy lights, red berries perfectly placed next to fresh eucalyptus, cosy candle-lit lunches with friends, stylishly wrapped gifts, ‘holiday season dressing’ (whatever that actually means) and, of course, New Year’s Eve. All this, before we’ve even got started on the festive meme bank.
If I scroll through it between the 23rd of December and 1st of January I feel like an outsider walking alone through dark streets and looking in on hundreds of other families all doing it better than my own.
BFF 1 confirms I’m not the only one. ‘Instagram makes me hate my life most of the time but more than usual at this time of year’, she says.
I ask BFF 2 whether she thinks social media has exacerbated her December blues.
‘100%’ she says ‘you can’t avoid other people’s families. Nobody is Instagramming about having a shit time, are they?!?’
I don’t want to feel like this every single year. I want to be able to enjoy December instead of wishing it would just hurry up and be January already. This year will be my 30th Christmas and my 6th as an ACOD and I’ve finally come to the realisation that the only way to solve the problem is to tap out from the festive flurry and refuse to put pressure on my Christmas.
The truth is that life is complicated and messy and it’s OK that old wounds don’t magically heal, family feuds aren’t forgotten and problems don’t suddenly solve themselves just because it’s Christmas.
This year I’ve decided to visit my grandparents on Christmas eve and see how I feel about Christmas day nearer the time. Before you take pity on me and DM me to join you and your family, know that this decision has bought me great relief. I know that nothing can go wrong. I don’t intend to make not planning anything a ritual but, for once, I want to know that I can only be pleasantly surprised by what happens. This is how I generally approach my social life these days, having realised that the best nights out are unplanned so I see no reason why my logic can't extend to Christmas.
If more of us acknowledged that the conventional image of Christmas – all smiles, glittering decorations and picture-postcard perfection – is, actually, not only optimistic but unrealistic for some people maybe there would be less pressure put on it.
Some of the best things in life are uninstagrammable and, perhaps, for me, at this time of year that simply means doing things on my own terms and making it to the New Year emotionally unscathed.