Christmas 2015 was really awful. It was one
of those years when everything goes wrong on Christmas Eve and suddenly you’re
confronted with the realization that you’re not actually going to have a
Christmas this year. After the build up, and the easy assumption that you’ll be
able to kick back and enjoy yourself as usual… suddenly it all looks very
different.
And
when I was in a quiet house on Christmas Day, completely alone, with no
decorations or dinner or anything going on… it was a strange, still feeling. I
almost felt that everyone should experience this… just once, perhaps. Looking
out the back window at our misty street and gardens, and all the windows gently
lit up… I was thinking how lovely it would be to be part of any of those family
gatherings right now…
If
your Christmas is ruined one year it ensures that you’ll never take it for
granted again.
In
2015 Jeremy was whisked into hospital in the early hours of Christmas Eve. He’d
had a suspected flare-up of the Crohn’s that was diagnosed nineteen years
earlier. Suddenly he was in agony in the very early hours of the night, and I
had to call an ambulance. Next thing I was sitting by his side as they zoomed
us to Manchester Royal Infirmary. We stayed awake all night in numberless
waiting rooms and consulting rooms and corridors. We were placed on ward after
ward and the nightmare went on through the next morning and into the short
afternoon. Everywhere we went people were wearing Christmas jumpers and trying
to look cheery, and Jeremy was gasping in pain the whole time.
And,
as they tried to sort him out, it became clear he’d be stuck there for at least
a week.
And
so our Christmas was off.
Just
as it got dark I walked home through the south of the city. I was popping home
for a few hours to feed the cat, get a shower, and pack a bag for Jeremy. I
walked through the traffic chugging home and through streets with glowing trees
in every window. I remembered the running tally we always kept as kids,
counting the trees we saw in windows.
When
I eventually got to our street it was dark and the lamps were on. The
neighbours were starting up their Christmases. And Bernard Socks was racing
towards me down the middle of the street. Our strange, psychic cat seemed to
have had advance warning, and he came bounding up to me… I was delirious with
lack of sleep and it seems to me that he came running up on his hind legs like
Puss in Boots…
In
the hours I wasn’t visiting Jeremy in hospital during that
Christmas-that-wasn’t, I sat on our settee with Socks on my lap and I turned
for comfort-viewing to a certain box of DVDs I’d built up into a collection
over the years. I’ve made a habit of curating my very favourite Christmas
specials and episodes and movies into an impeccably tacky collection of discs.
That
Christmas our house was still a bit wrecked and half-decorated following a
disaster we’d had with ceilings falling in, and being left at the mercy of
awful insurance people and awful builders. The place was chilly and the bare
boards were covered in blobs of dried plaster. I felt adrift on the settee with
Socks… I didn’t touch any of the Christmas food I’d bought with Jeremy.
Everything went into the freezer… I ate pies made by my friend Wendy, who had
her own pie-making business (‘Life of Pie’) and had baked a batch with
variously festive fillings…
And
I sought solace in old friends from the telly… Tom and Barbara Good, Doctor Who
and Rose, Sarah and K9, Cagney and Lacey, Larry Grayson and Isla StClair, MR
James and Michael Hordern… from low comedy to high drama, sci-fi to sentimental
TV movies… Each single episode took me back to different Christmases past… from
childhood, from years in Edinburgh and Norwich and here in Manchester.
They
filled an entire week, and were curiously comforting. They reminded me: there
have been other Christmases. There will be other Christmases to come. It won’t
always be like this one.
That’s
the feeling I wanted to get into my book about Christmas Telly. I wanted to dig
down into the reason for my obsession with vintage shows like ‘The Box of
Delights’, or my seemingly ridiculous devotion to, say, the Christmas 1979
edition of ‘Crossroads.’ All these things are festive, but they’re brimming with
pathos, too: with a sense they represent a happiness that’s always only just,
and only briefly, within reach…
Our
hellish Christmas of 2015 forms the over-arching story of my book about telly,
‘The Christmas Box’, and I hope it’ll be a fun reminder for readers of the joy
of old telly. It might prompt them to go and find particular shows, it might
trigger a few happy dormant memories. Also, I hope it’ll be a reminder never to
take Christmas for granted.
Here
we are in 2017 and December is approaching fast. Unpacking boxes from the
attic, a hale and hearty Jeremy unfurls a miniature pink Christmas tree. He
fits new batteries and the lights glow brilliant white. He brings it up to my
study and we put it pride of place. It’s the first bit of Christmas in our
house this year.
I couldn’t give
a fig if anyone thinks it’s too early. Jeremy puts on records, crackly and
vinyl: records he’s kept preserved almost all his life. It’s early for
Christmas but these days I just think if you feel even the tiniest bit festive…
get a bloody tree up. Chuck some tinsel on. Who cares if it’s September or January
or Christmas itself? Make the bloody most of it. Don’t wait for it to come to
you. Because one year it might not turn up. So – get on with it. And happy
holidays – whatever and whenever you wish to celebrate.
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