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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

It’s not humbug, I just don’t like Christmas

17/12/2016

12 Comments

 
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If you trade in trees and turkeys, I wish you a prosperous one. If you’re a Christian, I wish you a divine one. If you can’t get enough bling, I wish you a glittery one. If you like old movies, I wish you a nostalgic one. If you’re an extrovert, I wish you a carousing one. If you’re happy to devote hundreds of hours to food creation and consumption, I wish you a gastronomic one. If you’re skilled at shopping, at giving and/or receiving presents, I wish you a gratifying one. If you have children, or an uncomplicated relationship with your roots, I wish you a familial one (and if you don’t, you might appreciate this flash from Sarah Brentyn). If you appreciate being nudged to consider others less fortunate, I wish you a charitable one. If you’re getting to know a new partner, I wish you a romantic one. If you’re in need of a break from a hectic job, I wish you a tranquil one.
With such a variety of ways to enjoy Christmas, there ought to be something for everyone. And yet if you’d rather ignore the whole thing, it’s not easy. Pursued by carols as you negotiate the obstacle course of the pre-Christmas supermarket, when you’ve only popped in to pick up an onion and a packet of lentils. Your regular restaurant heaving with raucous office parties if not fully booked five weeks in advance. The TV schedules all in a jumble and your newspaper rehashing last year’s stories. Each and every social interaction, however minor, tainted by questions about your plans for the holidays. Impossible to treat Christmas as an ordinary day.

Part of the tension of Christmas – or sometimes the pleasure if you can come to a creative resolution – is different people wanting to mark it in different ways. If there are only two of you, who tend to agree on most of life’s big issues, it shouldn’t be complicated. But alas, Mr A and I are at opposite poles on the question of how best to not have Christmas. I’d prefer to put my boots and go tramping the hills, while he’d rather stay in his slippers with a mince pie in front of the telly. A little complicated when,
celebrating our interconnectedness is, for me, one of the few interpretations of the season worth maintaining. But, hey, I can do that the rest of the year.
It would suit me fine to work over Christmas, although I’d never had the kind of job that demanded it. The year I began what was to become my second novel, Underneath, scheduled for publication next May, Mr A, who did have that kind of job as a theatre nurse, happened to be working a late shift. After a leisurely morning together, he went off to the hospital and I went off to the computer. I hope you don’t think me unfaithful, but I spent several productive and satisfying hours that day in the company of my narrator, Steve.
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Perhaps coincidentally, there are a couple of Christmas scenes in that novel. In the first, partly influenced by my own experience of being painfully disabused of the myth of Santa, he’s about five, and has to “man up” when his mother informs him that the unbelievers at school are right. In the second, he’s about forty, but still a kid on many levels, and has recently bought a house and persuaded Liesel to move in with him. Steve is accustomed to working through Christmas abroad whereas Liesel, due to her mother’s suicide, always feels fragile at this time of the year. They decide to spend the holiday cut off from anyone else, in their love nest in the cellar that subsequently becomes a prison.

The more traditional family Christmas provides good fodder for novelists, tensions mounting among people unaccustomed to spending so much time together, which Anne Enright covers delightfully in
The Green Road. Despite the hectic preparations, there’s a sense of the ordinary rules being relaxed around Christmas, something that leads to disaster for Stephen who takes this a step too far in Francesca Kay’s The Long Room. There’s also an article on the theme of Christmas chaos in last weekend’s Guardian.

Whatever form yours is taking, I wish you a good one; I’m sure my own aversion to the season won’t put you off.


Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
12 Comments
Terry Tyler
19/12/2016 08:45:50 am

I'm in your camp, Anne. I can't be doing with it, especially not the supermarket bit. What Mr T and I do is this: we buy our family modest presents and have them distributed in good time. We write a (very) few cards. On Christmas morning, we open our presents, and thank whoever sent them. And that's it. That's all we do. No tree, no special dinner, no enforced socialising, no drinking (because he doesn't and I scarcely do, these days). We might curl up with telly earlier than usual, and start making headway into the far-too-many chocolates people give us, but that's it. I would like to walk too, but Mr T is unable to do so for more than 5 minutes, and I live in a fairly built up area, alas!! Basically, though, we ignore it as much as possible. I love January 7th :)

Reply
Annecdotist
19/12/2016 01:08:12 pm

Thanks, Terry, pleased to see you’ve got this business sorted! I’m with you on the cards – I send out about twenty – otherwise I’d have to phone people up and talk to them. But what’s this with the present exchange malarkey? I’m pleased to have cut that one out apart from money to the nieces. I’ll probably have my walk if it’s not too wet as I’m quite accustomed to walking on my own. The jury’s still out about the tree – we have a glittery one lurking in the loft, but the whole half hour it takes to put it together might be better spent with my nose in a book.
Hopefully you can come up for air before the seventh. When I was a child we did the twelve days of Christmas thing, which also fitted with the church, but these days they seemed to start Christmas at the end of November and are pig sick of it by the day after Boxing Day and the trees are put out for the bin.

Reply
Sarah
19/12/2016 05:14:41 pm

Thanks for the shout out, Anne. I think, for many, there are mixed feelings about this holiday. And I don't think you're alone in your dislike of it. I do love that you're writing. ❤️ So that's a happy holiday. Either way, "The more traditional family Christmas provides good fodder for novelists..." there is some truth!

Reply
Annecdotist
19/12/2016 05:57:28 pm

You’re right, Sarah, lots of people have mixed feelings about Christmas and I’m thinking this year it’s perhaps easier to come down more clearly on one side. I guess I’ll either be writing or walking, before the annual ritual of at least about how to roast potatoes, which is indeed a lot more fun than many might have.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
22/12/2016 09:38:10 am

I wish you happy days, Anne, however you choose to spend them. Walking or/and writing or reading make for glorious days. Alleluia!
Hopefully with just the two of you to please, you can reach some kind of consensus.
My Christmas celebrations have changed as family has changed. I was going to say "The best days were ..." but maybe they're all best in their own way; though I can name a few that were the worst by far. Fortunately I was able to make choices to leave those days behind, but the guilt remained.
Thanks for the link to my post from a Christmas past. Both grandchildren now know about the story of Santa. Last year G2 (age 4 at the time) didn't want to talk to him. This year she rushed up an gave him a big hug. Is she just older, or is he less scary now that she knows he's a man in costume?

Reply
Annecdotist
22/12/2016 10:04:42 am

AreThank you, Norah, and wishing you a happy one with your grandkids. It’s funny how scary Santa can be to kids given their entertaining them is his sole purpose (or entertaining the parents vicariously via their kids) – I wonder if it makes a difference if the children are used to beards.

Reply
geoff le pard link
22/12/2016 10:32:51 am

The dynamics of Christmas certainly changed with the advent (ha!, if only it was 24 days) of children and their expectations which we helped create. That said the worst by far were the compromise Christmases where we were pulled in different directions as a couple and often spent part of our precious holidays apart. We vowed to make sure our own children felt comfortable with 'abandoning ' us to stay with boy/girlfriends families if they wanted. Hopelessly naive of us of course; they now chase their arses trying to satisfy both. Oh well, their choice! Now it's just another day but with some rather nice traditions in the period: an evening with some close friends where all teh kids make big efforts to be there, bringing in guests to play a vast number if crazy games around some fab food - last year we had an utterly bemused Korean couple trying to grasp the complexities of Secret Santa (Le Pard version, 2.0) and their stab at charades where they sung their mine... hmmm yes, a language issue here I think. And the soppy movie I share with my daughter - dad and daughter only time. Now that is nice. So yes, I get your take and I'm with you part of the way. Have whatever passes for a good one Anne. Much love from the deep south (and looking forward to Underneath - I never read the final manuscript so have no idea where it ends! If you want some pre launch reviews done then bear me in mind.)

Reply
Annecdotist
22/12/2016 06:45:51 pm

Thanks for sharing, Geoff, your secret Santa sounds scary! I do find that by the time we get to this stage and the supermarket has been conquered there’s something appealing in how things close down.
Hope yours goes well this time round (although how can it compete with your birthday celebrations?). And might take you up on that offer regarding Underneath.

Reply
geoff le pard link
22/12/2016 06:52:03 pm

I'm pretty sure it will be a quiet Xmas by our standards! And I'm at Crisis for 4 days so that takes me away for the melee. And do keep me in mind re reading to review...

Annecdotist
27/12/2016 11:11:01 am

I hope that's worked for you, Geoff,. Supporting the homeless is extremely positive way of not doing Christmas. Good for you.

Irene Waters link
2/2/2017 09:07:53 pm

Christmas has been and gone but i just love your Christmas wishes and your small memoir. I am particularly thrilled to know you have another book coming out in May. I will look forward to it.

Reply
Annecdotist
6/2/2017 01:21:14 pm

Thanks, Irene, and welcome back to the blogosphere after your break. Funnily enough, after this grumpy post, I had a very happy Christmas day, comprising a walk on the moors, a little bit of writing, some decent TV, a nice meal and some fizzy wine. So now my expectations are raised for next year!

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