I’m tired of people saying Christmas is for children. It’s wasted on them. They can’t appreciate the pleasure of drinking prosecco first thing in the morning on the one day of the year that it’s seen as “festive” and not “a sign of a drinking problem”. They don’t know the true joy of rage-baiting that uncle by asking him what pronouns he prefers to be called by. Watching his face turn the same colour as the pants on the Santa doll that shakes to Rocking Around the Christmas Tree that Gran loves. Too bad we hid the batteries to it in 2007, never to be seen again.
Christmas as adults should be a time of joy. We’re the ones emancipated from having to eat vegetables cooked for so long they’ve lost any identifying features or flavours. We’re the ones with the money. We can decide when we get to go home. We can eat all the green Quality Street triangles and just buy a new box instead of accidentally giving ourselves root canals finishing the Toffee Pennies. There are no fights about who gets to put the angel on the tree when it’s your own. And you’ve replaced the angel with a cardboard cut-out of Joe Dolan.
But I don’t enjoy Christmas as much as I did as a kid. And that’s because when you’re a kid Christmas happens to you. When you’re an adult you have to make the poxy Christmas happen. It’s an annual organisational Olympics that happens right when everyone is tired and worn out. You’re making a list, you’re checking it twice. You realise you’ve forgotten the cream for the trifle and drive back to the shops for the fourth time in three days. The trifle that no one will eat but everyone will give out about if it isn’t made. But we all know Christmas isn’t a time for being rational. Logic is the opposite of magic. Every time we stop tying ourselves in knots under the invisible Christmas expectations of others, an elf is taken out of Santa’s workshop and shot in front of his wife and children.
Every year around December 21st when I am travelling across the world with a suitcase full of presents and somehow no socks for myself, I promise myself that things will be different next year. They won’t be. But it’s nice to live under the illusion. These are my Christmas learnings I’ll be trying to apply this year:
Do I look like a soft target? Do I give off the sad vibes of a person who can be inconvenienced?
Brianna Parkins: I don’t enjoy Christmas as much as I did as a kid
Brianna Parkins: The Australian ambassador to Ireland came over for dinner recently
Give me a quiet quitter over a loud worker any day - there’s nothing worse
No more obligation presents
You know the type. “I have to get THEM something because THEY’LL get us something.” These are people we like and value but not enough to spend more than €30 on. This is the kind of social expectation that is fuelling the industrial scented candle complex. Entire economies have sprouted up over having to buy things for people out of politeness. Think novelty mugs, “gin” kits consisting of a few dehydrated berries, and cheeseboard sets. I know men in their late 30s still working their way through the deluge of Lynx Africa shower sets they were given as teens. I don’t want another diffuser that smells of vanilla. Instead don’t buy me anything if you’re not my immediate family. Let’s put the money we would have wasted on bland gifts towards going out to lunch together in the new year. Or put it towards something useful such as an Etsy witch to curse our mutual enemies.
No efforts just ‘for social media’
As a rule of thumb, ask yourself: if I couldn’t post this on social media, would I do it? That means no yelling at children for incorrect bauble placement on the tree. Using the scraps of wrapping paper from Christmas’s past instead of running around to make sure every present under the tree is covered with this year’s palette of aesthetically pleasing neutrals. We can stop wrangling kids under fives into itchy velvet dresses “for a photo”. Joy to the world!
Mother knows best
Timing is everything according to the Queen of Christmas – otherwise known as my mum, Lorraine. My dad, like most fathers of his generation, believed we were one frivolous TK Maxx bath bomb purchase from financial ruin as a family. When he dies we’ll put “Why did you have to buy that?” on his tombstone. But Lorraine would wait until the day after his work Christmas drinks to do the present shopping. After being dragged around the overstimulating shopping centre with a thumping head in a state of dehydration, he was too weak to fight back. Eventually he would volunteer to “mind the bags” on a seat with all the other dads with thousand-yard stares while Lorraine skipped off with his credit card. Was it ethical? No. But did Lorraine make sure her babies got everything they wanted for Christmas? Yes.
