Funnily enough, Christmas seems to happen almost every year. Grazia’s Lucy Vine breaks down what to expect if you’re not in a relationship...
1. Your mum will automatically assume you’re coming home and not even consider the fact that you might have other plans.
2. Even though you are a grown woman with lots of options.
3. Maybe you wanted to go spend Christmas Day on a beach in Australia.
4. But don’t even joke because you’re definitely going home.
5. And you’re working until the 23rd? She’s outraged about that, she was expecting you home from the 10th December latest.
6. Once you’re home, you’ll be in your old single bed.
7. The one with the Tigers duvet.
8. You’ll moan about that, but you’ll actually be quite excited.
9. You loved that duvet.
10. Meanwhile, your sister (who totally had an option of whether she came home for Christmas, because she’s an ADULT in a RELATIONSHIP) and her boyfriend are treated like royalty. They’re in the posh spare room with a double bed that has no 1980s soft toys taking up all the room.
11. And they get first dibs on all the food.
12. You really wanted that one particular crispy roast potato and your brother-in-law took it.
13. You hate him.
14. But you get all the leftovers because – as your uncle pointed out – what else do you have in your life?
15. It will turn out that you definitely haven’t brought enough alcohol with you. You had two bottles of Baileys, but they have somehow been drunk already on the train home.
16. They must’ve had a hole in the bottom.
17. Of both bottles.
18. You will complain to M&S when you are no longer drunk (in 2016).
19. You will end up drinking your mum’s Christmas Day sherry, even though it is The Worst.
20. Someone will have set you up with the boy from down the road, who is ‘also single’ and ‘very eligible’.
21. Except you remember him from school and he spent his days scratching his crotch and smelling his fingers.
22. You’ll say no thanks and people will tut as if they can’t help you if you’re intent on ruining your life.
23. And you’ll still get a text an hour later from him saying, ‘Hapy Crissmas!!!!! Ur mum says you fncy sme mysletoe ackion?’
24. Accompanied by, sigh, so many winky faces.
25. You will pop out for Christmas drinks with school friends.
26. But it won’t be popping out, because Mum needs to know what time you’ll be home and should she wait up and where should she leave the key and could you text if you’re going to be out past 9.30pm and couldn’t your stepdad Nigel not come with you and sit outside the place in the car until you want to come home?
27. Your old school friends will all be married. Everyone will be married. Everyone has been married for 65 years.
28. And they all want to know if you’re dating anyone and look disappointed when you say no.
29. While you’re out, your mum will go through your unpacked bag and wash your pants.
30. And they’ll be hanging up when you go down for breakfast the next morning.
31. In front of your sister’s boyfriend who is avoiding eye contact with you.
32. Older relatives will ask you again and again why you’re single and then tell you all the reasons.
33. Your standards are too high.
34. You should make an effort and stop wearing pyjamas every day.
35. You drink too much sherry.
36. You could try washing your hair every now and again.
37. They will then pretend to have forgotten they’ve asked you and ask you six or seven more times.
38. Or eight.
39. Nine.
40. And no, they don’t care that you just got a promotion and are on course to be the UK’s next Prime Minister. You are single and therefore failing.
41. You’ll go on Tinder and the only person on there in a 45 mile radius is that boy from down the road.
42. He has ‘SUPER LIKED’ you.
43. And you think, ‘Maybe…’
44. Because it’s Christmas, so OF COURSE there will be moments when you think, ‘Oh.’
45. Like, when Nigel pulls your mum in for a hug in front of the Christmas episode of Call The Midwife.
46. Or when you turn on the telly and Love Actually is on for the 17th time that afternoon and it’s that scene where the kid is running through the airport after that girl who can sing really well and what’s happened to her now anyway?
47. You’ll Google it and find out she is called Olivia Olson and she tweets about being a vegetarian, and is now horrifyingly 23 and is probably not single and has definitely been married for 65 years.
48. However happily single you are, you’ll think, ‘Christmas jumpers look cosy for cuddles.’
49. But then you’ll remember how uncomfortable sitting like that is.
50. Why do people think having an arm round the back of them, forcibly pushing their head and neck forwards, would be comfy?
51. And you’ll think how awesome that you’ve got the whole armchair to yourself, for just you, cushions and Quality Street.
52. And you’ll remember the scene in Love Actually where Emma Thompson cries in her bedroom over Alan Rickman cheating on her
53. And your sister and her boyfriend are upstairs screaming at each other.
54. And you’ll think about how much money you’ve saved on presents.
55. And then you’ll reply to that text from the boy down the road.
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