Denis: Happy to spend Christmas on our own!
Dec 1 2008 by Our Correspondent, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
WHEN I was a child, the festive season was a wonderful time. Street decorations, toyshop window displays, bright lights in December gloom.
I looked forward to the holidays – and holy days – when the family would unite and Uncle Joe would get tiddly and Santa would leave a sackful of toys at the end of the bed.
When Maria and I had children, our roles changed.
We became the providers of the magic and good times for our daughters and we had to keep the in-laws happy, as well, dodging all over the place to visit relatives.
As our offspring grew into teenagers and young women, we became the base around which they flitted.
They had their own festive schedule of sleepovers and parties and nightclubs and boyfriends but we were expected to provide the Christmas dinner and a haven in which they could collapse if they had partied too enthusiastically.
Now Siobhan lives in Donegal with her husband and our two grandsons. Sian lives in Manchester.
Last year, Sian went to Ireland to spend Christmas with her sister. Siobhan asked us to go, too.
We couldn’t leave the dog and fly there, I said. There was no one to look after her.
And I refused to undertake the four hour drive to Stranraer with the dog in the back of the car, face a December sea crossing to Belfast and another two hours to Donegal.
This year, we have been invited again and again said no for the same reasons. Siobhan thinks we are making limp excuses.
“I would have thought you would want to spend Christmas with your grandsons,” she said.
We would, if they lived somewhere more accessible. But our reasons for not going remain valid.
Plus (and whisper this quietly in case we are accused of being related to Ebenezer Scrooge) we quite like spending Christmas on our own. We’ve done our share of being providers and dashing all over the place being nice to relatives.
We shall fly out to see our grandsons in 10 days and again in the middle of January, when Bill, our house-sitter is available.
Our daughters think we are sad, but Maria and I will be happily spending Christmas itself alone and unfettered and very relaxed.
