Christmas out-foreign (or the year I was asleep by 11pm because I ate too much)

Christmas crept up on me completely. Whatever ‘Christmas spirit’ is supposed to be, it bypassed me until Christmas Day itself – and late into the afternoon at that. 2019’s big day was as cherished as it was unusual, spent in Chicago with my bestest friend from home who had drawn the very short straw of leaving the Californian sun for the Illinois… well, the Illinois-not-sun-but-not-snow-either. I enjoy Christmas at home but there was something fierce exciting and liberating about doing Christmas Day however I wanted to, like a bad-ass grown-up. See, Christmas in your thirties when you’re single is a bit weird; everyone else looks like they’ve got their shit together with their kids and jobs and spouses and there you are, in your thirties, being made get up for Mass. I thought this year would give me a sense of what I should feel like at Christmas. It didn’t. But two enduring lessons were learned; presents matter, and there’s a reason Christmas dinner isn’t eaten at nine in the evening.

Here in the States, Thanksgiving keeps Christmas at bay until late November – unlike at home where Hallowe’en is all that stops Christmas beginning in August. Because many Americans have already recently travelled for Thanksgiving, Christmas is more of an afterthought than an obsession. Advertising is so manic here all year long that December’s no different really, except for the added jingling bells and dustings of snow. Also (and aged thirty-three is a bit late to be coming to this particular party) not everyone celebrates Christmas; specifically, the 6% of the population that is non-Christian and a fair few of the 22% who are not religiously affiliated – hence the prevalence of ‘Happy Holidays’ as a greeting . Many homes hang Christmas decorations and lights, much as they did for Hallowe’en. The ice-skating rink at Millennium Park is picture-perfect and the wreathed lion statues outside the Art Institute of Chicago remind passers-by that ‘elegance’ and ‘Christmas’ are not mutually exclusive ideas. I found gorgeous Christmas cards, but they weren’t the easiest come by and charity cards aren’t a thing here. And while one would expect Chicago to be solid on the snow-front, thankfully (for me, not for the planet) there wasn’t a trace of snow, just more exceptionally mild weather. Because I did all my shopping online with Irish-based vendors like Smyth’s Toys, O’Mahony’s Books in Limerick and Kenny’s in Galway, I didn’t do much Christmas shopping downtown and so for most of the lead-up, it felt like Christmas was a thing happening to other people.

However, Christmas and its spirit did come on the 23 December when the Right Honourable Member for California arrived in from San Francisco on the California Zephyr train. With the two of us in the US, we had decided ages ago that we’d do Christmas Day our way; vegetarian dinner, getting up when we wanted, popping open cheap champagne when we felt like it, spending the day in matching pyjamas (a proud day for the parish indeed), watching whatever we wanted on tele. Jesus it was great, but by the end of the day our attempt at a Grown-Up Christmas wasn’t far off Lord of the Flies (minus the violence of course). I ate too much cheese at lunch and dinner had to be pushed back. We couldn’t decide what to watch on television so the Father Ted episodes on YouTube were just left running. We didn’t coordinate the phoning of our families so one would get off the phone only for the other to go off and ring an aunt or brother. We didn’t eat the dinner until nine o’clock and were asleep by eleven from pure over-indulgence and inability to walk away from the blue cheese Brussel sprouts. Turns out we’re not adults at all, nowhere near mature enough for the responsibility of a functional Christmas Day! We were so excited about doing Christmas ‘our way’ but after thirty-two family Christmases spent in houses of six people and more, doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted was almost counter-intuitive and took a bit of getting used to.

It was an undoubtedly unconventional Christmas; no turkey, in lieu of a tree – I WAS BUSY – there was a string of lights, we didn’t don the ‘good clothes’ (unless one counts the new matching pyjamas sent to us) and we didn’t go to Mass. But having stripped down Christmas to the bare essentials, there was little to distinguish the day from a random Tuesday in May. And that’s where presents came in. Presents matter, people. Presents matter. I knew mine were coming – I had rigged conducted the family Secret Santa draw and had given out my address to enough people to roughly predict who was sending stuff – and yet my heart swelled opening everything on Christmas Day. Cities are cold places, particularly if you’re new to them, and you get used to being self-reliant, of people here not knowing you as well as the crowd at home did, of regularly feeling a bit outsider-ish as you find your feet (then you find them and it’s time to go home but sure c’est la vie…). That’s why it meant the world on Christmas morning to unwrap the presents of those who know me well; the pyjamas my sister sent me because she knows well I never have decent pyjamas, or the hat sent by my mother who presumes I lost the last five, or the Keogh’s crisps and Cadbury’s chocolate because the neighbours know I’m a martyr for snacking and the book about the RHI cash-for-ash scandal because sure what else would you want to be reading in America? They’re all the gifts of people with kids and jobs and stuff-to-do, who took the time to wrap presents and queued to post them to America just so I’d know they’d been thinking of me.  In one way or another, all the presents said “you are missed” and being reminded of that meant a lot; nobody is above being reminded of that, no matter how good a time they’re having out-foreign. Presents and cards matter folks, if for no better reason than me now owning two sets of decent pyjamas. Two!

And so, the day that we all exhaust ourselves planning and perfecting, passed quickly in a Chicago apartment in a haze of cheese, Brussel sprouts, wine and several episodes of Fr. Ted. It was a lovely day, made all the better by the gifts and presents that people were good enough to send us. And should Circumstance and Christmas conspire to throw Ballinlough’s finest together again out-foreign, the lessons are learned and dinner will be served at three o’clock.