All over the UK, there are currently people dragging suitcases and Tesco Bags for Life full of presents, back to their family homes for a few days of emotional regression and fights about Quality Street.
For a lot of us, the idea of going home for Christmas is something we take for granted, or even feel mildly resentful about. If your Dad was in the Rolling Stones and you’ve got an underground spa, then going back to your childhood home might be tempting. But for many of people, Christmas involves returning to a town that you spent a lot of time and effort to get away from, and staying in a bedroom even smaller than the one you spend half your paycheque to rent. And so it’s fair enough if you’re not over the moon about being back in your hometown.
But, without wanting to be preachy, even the homebound trips which are tinged with resentment, really are still an enormous privilege.
‘Are you excited to go home for Christmas?’ I asked a friend of a friend at a party recently. ‘I’m not going home,’ they replied. ‘We don’t really have a family home, to be honest.’
It was one of those moments where the volume of my own privilege was internally deafening. I knew that lots of people didn’t go home at Christmas because they weren’t accepted by their family, or because they were closer to a chosen family. But it hadn’t really occurred to me that there were people who literally cannot go home for Christmas, because there is no home for them to go to.
‘My mum lives in a studio,’ Kate, 29* told me. ‘When I went to uni she stopped renting the house in East London we had lived with my sister. She didn’t need two bedrooms anymore, or the stress that came with paying for that much space. I was upset, I won’t lie. But how could I expect her to pay more rent all year around so that we can all have Christmas together? These days I earn pretty well, so I usually take us all away somewhere for a break. But yeah, I do feel a bit of a pang when I see everyone going back to their perfect houses and having these big family parties. It’s hard during the year, too. I wish I could go and stay with her, but there just isn’t space.’
‘I moved around the UK as a kid’ says Sophie, 25*, ‘so honestly I don’t have a special connection to anywhere. I go back to wherever my parents are currently living, and rent an airbnb close to them. Sometimes it’s Scotland, sometimes it’s Liverpool, one time it was the Isle of Wight. I don’t get that whole “driving home for Christmas” mentality, it’s more about having a couple of days with my brothers and sisters, wherever my parents have ended up. Sometimes I envy people who have “home friends” and go to the pub on Christmas Eve to catch up. But I’ve got plenty of mates back in London, where I live now.’
Abbie, 29* has a similar experience. ‘I lived in 20 houses between the age of two and 18. We were sometimes functionally homeless, other times we stayed with my grandparents, friends of my mum’s, whoever my mum was in a relationship with. None of those were a “home”. I live in my own place now and my mum insists on coming to me for Christmas. She likes to talk about our “traditions”, none of which I remember happening when I was a child.’
Alexandra*, 27, lost her family home in a fire earlier this year and so is having her first Christmas away from her family.
‘My family home burned down earlier this year,’ she says, ‘so my parents decided it was time to try doing Christmas apart. We’re all trying to be cheerful about it, saying what a great adventure it’s going to be. When I booked to go out for lunch in central London on Christmas Day with a friend, I thought it was going to be amazing - a very Sex and the City Christmas. But as it’s getting closer I keep having dreams about waking up in my own bed at home and being with my sisters.’
Parents deciding that they want to be free from playing happy families also seems to be a common theme amongst those who don’t get to go ‘home-home’ for December 25.
‘When my parents retired,’ says Rachel*, 31, ‘they decided that they didn’t need a permanent base. They basically follow the sun all year around. All their stuff is in storage, and they live in serviced apartments wherever they fancy. Each year they say we can go and visit them in whatever hot place they’ve ended up, but me and my siblings usually can’t afford the tickets. I know it’s their retirement so it’s their choice, but they’ve got loads of money. It kind of hurts that they don’t want to see us enough to come back to the UK for a week or so.’
Possibly even harder than there being no family home to return to, is there not being any space for you in the home which your parents still live in. ‘My parents are both remarried with kids,’ says Siam*, 35. ‘They had me pretty young and they’ve now got kids who are still school age, and no space for me - all the kids are sharing bedrooms already, so I’d be on the sofa in the living room with the Christmas tree, which no one wants. I’m old enough that they don’t think they need to worry about me. It was okay when I was in a relationship, but it’s hard now I’m single. Honestly, this year I just can’t wait for it to be over.’
Sleeping on a squeaky single bed in a room filled with empty bottles of Charlie Red and battered copies of Harry Potter, might not seem like much, especially not when you’re screaming at your sister for stealing a top from your room that you haven’t worn since 2007, or throwing down over the last roast potato. But, no matter how claustrophobic or provincial home might feel, just having somewhere to return to really is the greatest privilege of all.
*names have been changed
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