By Emma Clayton

 

IT'S fair to say that Christmas loses its magic once you're no longer listening out for Santa's sleigh bells.

Nothing beats how you feel as a child going to bed on Christmas Eve, beside yourself with excitement, then giddy with relief next morning to discover that "he's been".

"It's a good job Father Christmas brings all this stuff. It'd be expensive otherwise," I remember my sister once saying.

There's a lull after the "believing years", then Christmas picks up again in your teens with festive parties and the thrill of mistletoe kisses. Whenever I hear Wham's Last Christmas I feel a pang of yearning for that time.

The festivities of my student years and twenties were largely spent in pubs, but there was always that lovely 'coming home' aspect to Christmas when I'd be back with the family, cracking open Brazil nuts and unravelling the familiar paraphernalia of our childhood to trim the tree. The family rituals I'd known forever were ingrained in our Christmases, and have remained so over the years.

This Christmas, however, will be different. For various reasons, including death and divorce, it's all a bit fractured this year and instead of the usual bustling comings and goings, it looks like it's going to be a quiet one. "Let's just go to the pub," I told my sister, when we were facing the prospect of pulling a lone cracker over a microwave turkey dinner.

York Press:

EMPTY: the comforting rituals of Christmas just won't be the same this year, says Emma Clayton

After losing my parents over the past year, I'm okay with doing something different this year. The sense of loss is still quite raw, and the festive rituals we've loved over the years would feel a bit hollow. I don't think I can face Christmas dinner this year with empty places at the table.

I was feeling a bit sad about all this, then I spoke to a lovely woman who used to run a project which sheltered homeless women and children. Every winter the project increased its intake, but recently it was forced to close due to cuts and she fears that the loss of this and other voluntary organisations offering cold weather provision could result in people dying on our streets this winter.

I thought of the homeless man in a wheelchair I'd seen recently, bedded down for the night in a doorway on a stormy evening. He was covered in a thin blanket, with a pair of grubby trainers poking out, and I wondered how someone could possibly sleep in the rain.

Short of a seasonal miracle, he'll be rolling that blanket out again this Christmas Eve. My Christmas might be a bit quiet this year, but at least I have love and shelter in my life.