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Krista relays various stages of her life, through her Christmas experiences, from pre-birth to old age. Christmas is a time in which everyone has shared experiences; waiting for Father Christmas to come, the school Christmas play, awkward Christmas dinner at the in-laws', sale shopping. Krista leads you through these, as well as her hen night, an Aussie barbie Christmas, a trip to the hospital with her sister for an ultrasound scan, and the anniversary of her mother's death.
Christmases aren't always happy, but they are always eventful.
Rings
It’s Christmas. It’s 1981.
I am not yet born and yet I am very much alive. I let my mother know this on a regular basis
in a variety of ways. Right now I am
wriggling and twisting and making myself comfortable on her bladder. She, not happy by my movement, is clenching
her muscles and running up the stairs, letting out a frustrated whine as her
fingers forget how to unbutton buttons.
Pipers
It’s Christmas. It’s one more sleep until Father Christmas
comes. I can’t wait. Mum is cleaning the house. She’s singing along to her Christmas
tape. Wizzard wish it could be Christmas
every day. So do I. It’s the best time of year. The lights and songs and food and presents
and snow. It’s just so amazing. Not that it’s snowing today. It’s really cold outside. People are walking past wearing big woolly hats
and scarves and gloves. They look
frozen. I’m not cold. My toes are snuggly warm inside my slippers.
Hens
It’s Christmas. It’s the last day of school. Miss Timms seems very excited and happy. She calls the register. Everyone’s here. We line up by the door and go into the hall
for assembly. We sit down. Everyone is talking. Mr Murdoch jumps out from behind the piano
wearing a Father Christmas hat and a long bit of gold tinsel around his neck
like a scarf. Everyone stops talking and
starts laughing. Mr Welsh sits down at
the piano and shuffles his sheet music.
Mr Murdoch presses a button on the side of the overhead projector and it
flickers into life, displaying the words to Away In A Manger on the wall at the
front. Mr Welsh starts playing the piano
and everyone sings.
Partridge & Pear Tree
It’s Christmas. It’s the end of September. The barometer needle still points to ‘sunny’
and the mercury has settled itself in the low 20s. Slowly, the shops have started sneaking packs
of Christmas cards and dusty tinsel onto their shelves. Everything is half price and people are
buying it. As I walk down the aisles,
past the glitter and the sparkle and the motion activated dancing snowmen, the
shops’ music systems intersperse classic Christmas anthems amongst the usual
middle of the road pop drivel that is played on a continuous loop. Someone somewhere has been paid a fortune to
scientifically produce a playlist that encourages people to buy more than they
actually want. The songs can’t be too
aggressive or too relaxing, just in case they heighten the emotions and cause
unnecessary outbursts of excitement. The
aisles would be full of old people rolling around on the floor, clutching at
their chests and making the experience of shopping more frustrating than it
usually is. The songs have to be easy
listening, nonchalant, blah. It’s called
muzak apparently and there’s a skill to it, and it drives me crazy. I work in one of these shops.
Geese
It’s Christmas. It’s my boyfriend’s birthday. “It’s so unfair,” he tells me all the time. Not just at Christmas, but all the time. Whenever anyone in the world has a birthday
at any time of the year, he ruins their day by complaining that he doesn’t get
to have a birthday because of Christmas. “Out of the other 364 days in the year, my
parents thought it would be a good idea to give birth to me on Christmas Day,”
he tells me all the time. It’s the same
thing, all the time. Ok, I know his
parents weren’t to know that he would be born on Christmas Day, but if they
were going to conceive a baby on or around the 25th of March they
should have known that the baby would be born on or around the 25th
of December. Or am I the only one here
who knows it takes nine months to grow a baby?
Drummers
It’s Christmas. It’s thirty-two degrees outside and
twenty-nine degrees in the shade. I’m
three weeks into my six month trip around the world. I’m sitting on the deck looking out over the
beach with a beer in my hand and a barbecue waiting to start sizzling behind
me. Everyone’s out surfing but it’s too
hot for me. I’m far too English for my
own good. They call me ‘the
lobster’. The sunburn has become my natural
colour now. I glow in the dark. Father Christmas could have used me to guide
his sleigh last night. It doesn’t even
hurt anymore. That’s a lie. It hurts like hell. People slap the backs of my legs whenever
they get the chance. They laugh. I laugh.
I cry on the inside. The beach
umbrella that’s towering over my head is only just enough protection to keep me
cool. I’m still sweltering.
Dancers
It’s Christmas. It’s our last few days of freedom. Well, it’s not really, but that’s what
everyone says. Everyone being my
girlfriends and my sister. Not that I’m
one to be a sheep and follow the crowd, but they want a party and I could do
with a good night out, so who am I to argue? Jenny’s drunk already. She’s been drunk since Tuesday. She doesn’t need an excuse. She’s singing along to one of Mum’s Christmas
compilation CDs while sitting on the toilet.
The bathroom door is open. I can’t find the cork
screw. I shout up to Jenny to ask if she
has it. She doesn’t answer. She’s sitting on the floor with her knickers
around her ankles warbling incoherently into a shampoo bottle. I love her.
Lords
It’s Christmas. It’s a boy.
My sister Jenny is lying on a hospital bed in a crunchy paper gown that
is hitched up around her baby bump. Her
belly glistens with green goo and the nurse smears it all over her skin with a
contraption that looks like a large plastic penis. She giggles and swoons as she taps her
fingers on my thigh to the sound of the baboon baboon baboon heartbeat. The alien foetus pulses on
the monitor next to my sister’s head.
I’m surprised they can even tell that it’s a baby. It looks more like the first ever televised
monarch’s Christmas speech in 1932. A
large headed creature bumbling behind a television screen. The nurse points out his head and his fingers
and his legs and I nod along even though I can’t see what she’s
describing. Jenny squeals like a police
car siren and her words become jumbled and inaudible. She cries.
I hold her hand and look at the pictures of babies on the wall. Jenny’s ingrown human looks nothing like the
pictures on the wall and I hope it never does.
They’re all cute and adorable and smiley. I hope her spawn ends up looking like her.
Swans
It’s Christmas. It’s half past ten in the morning. We’re at Oliver’s parents’ house this year. They’re a bit posh and their house is far too
clean and tidy for my liking. They have
paper coasters that they put over the normal coasters so that they don’t get
dirty. I’m perched on the edge of
their cream and beige sofa holding on to my mug of tea with dear life so as not
to spill a drop of brown liquid on their pale oatmeal carpet. Miss Marple isn’t welcome here with her
grubby paws and messy eating habits so she’s spending Christmas with my
parents. They don’t mind. They miss having a dog in the house since Big
Bird and David Bowie died so I know they’ll make a fuss of her.
Milking Maids
It’s Christmas. It’s the first day of the sales. Jenny is bundling her brood into the back of
her people carrier. Valentino refuses to
get dressed. Jenny shoves a pair of
welly boots into my hand and points to her son.
I force his feet into the boots and wrap a coat around his Superman
pyjamas. I don’t dare let go of
him. I don’t know where he’d end
up. Jenny comes in and carries him under
her arm to the car. She straps him into
his seat and receives a kick to the face.
She gives him a bar of chocolate to keep him quiet. Merry-Belle is sleeping next to him. Even when he sticks his half eaten chocolate
bar into her ear she stays asleep.
Cherry Cola is sucking her thumb and reading a book, and when I say
book, I mean one of her mother’s trashy celebrity magazines, and when I say
read, I mean she’s turning the pages and laughing, and when I say turning the
pages, I mean she’s chewing on the paper.
It’s keeping her quiet so I don’t mind.
I spray anti-freeze onto the windscreen and scrape the ice off. It seeps through my gloves.
Doves
It’s Christmas. It’s a year since my mother died. It seems like a lot longer than that, but it’s
not. It’s been a tough year. The worst year imaginable. I’ve survived, just. Dad hasn’t.
He’s alive but he doesn’t live anymore.
He performs all the basic animal actions but no more than absolutely
necessary. He sleeps, occasionally. Mainly with the help of drugs or
alcohol. He eats, occasionally. But it’s a struggle. He can’t seem to muster the effort. It’s painful to watch. A year ago today I lost two parents, not one.
Colly Birds
It’s Christmas. It’s dark outside. It’s dark inside. It’s dark inside me. I’ve not seen one person walk past my house
today. They must be at home. With their families. With their friends. Must be nice. The birds fly past. The birds fly past and they take no notice of
me. I notice them but they don’t return
the compliment. The trees are bare. They’re tall and naked. They claw at the sky with jagged talons. Witches’ fingers. Nails scraping down a blackboard night sky. They make me shudder. They wave at me, those bony hands, those
skeletal hands, deformed and destitute.
All knuckles and empty promises.
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