Just now my landlord popped by to check the house for the winter - to set the boiler to heat up the water if none of us would be here, so the pipes don't freeze, and all that - and seemed surprised to see me home.
"Are you staying here over Christmas?"
Yes.
The incredulous reactions I get from people - aren't you going home* for Christmas? No. Why not? I don't want to. But - will there be people coming over? No. So you'll be all alone for Christmas? Yes. But - oh. Well. Happy Christmas then.
People seem unable to understand I'm actually looking forward to celebrating Christmas on my own.
All except my family, who are perfectly good with it. And there would be no use in me going home for Christmas anyway.
My Mum, despite not having to, being management and all, volunteered to help out on the wards she manages in the care home she works at. Her wards, being part of the care industry, are normally wildly understaffed as it is, let alone over the holidays. Even if she had intended on celebrating a family Christmas, she would have at least popped in for a few hours to help out - as she did two years ago, when I did go home for Christmas (if she were Catholic surely she'd have been sainted by now). Similarly, my stepfather will be working.
My Dad's been scheduled to work Christmas day, and his plans for Boxing day are similar to mine, as he told me yesterday. Being a lover of seafood, he'll make himself a lovely seafood platter and snack on that all day as he'll enjoy Boxing day on his own.
"Ilse," he said, "enjoy having time to yourself over the holidays as long as you can - this will be the first holiday in forty years I'll have to myself. Soon enough you'll have to spend Christmas day here, Boxing day there, then New Year's elsewhere."
My brother's come home from Alicante to celebrate Christmas, but he'll be spending it mostly with his girlfriend and her parents, so he'll be busy too.
In short, I don't have any strong reason to visit either of my parents over Christmas.
Last year, when I still lived in Leicester, during the seven-months winter, I fell ill just before Christmas, and then I'd also decided not to visit my parents for the holidays. Instead, I spent Christmas in bed with a bottle of wine and some delicious snacks, and went out into the snow for a long walk. I enjoyed that, and I intend to do the same this year - sans snow as they're not predicting any for the holidays, and perhaps also sans bed as I haven't got the flu this year, just a cold. I spent last year's New Year's sleeping off the flu; this year I might go into Leeds for a bit of a party.
It's wholly selfish, but there is no better way to celebrate the holidays than doing so completely on your own terms. Where you get to decide what wine to drink (none of that "oh yes but I've just opened a bottle of Merlot, I know you normally drink white but certainly you'll have a glass of red instead?"), what food to eat (no people around to pull faces at the Brussels sprouts because I actually like them, and will have them for Christmas. Along with delicious dishes of mushrooms in puff pastry and roasted cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegar), what to watch on television (no "do you have to watch Doctor Who? You're the only one who likes it anyway, can't we watch something everyone enjoys?" - and also no talking during the show!) and what to do when.
It's hardly something to feel bad or sad over - I love my family and they love me, and if we'd wanted each other's company we could've done so. It's just that things like this don't have to be celebrated precisely over Christmas - last year instead I visited them in late January and we exchanged some gifts and had a nice get-together then. Christmas is in that regard merely a calendar date - doing stuff with your family should be possible any day of the year.
Plus, I've got the rest of my life to get stressed over celebrating the holidays with other people ;)
*Home to me is Leeds, but as long as I study people will probably assume that home is Hellevoetsluis / Oostvoorne. I'm not sure why.
