For some, Christmas is a reminder of loss, tricky family relationships, addiction, and all the other painful things we try to bury the rest of the year.
There are few greater pleasures in life than someone telling you about how awful their holiday was when you were stuck in the rain at home with a broken radiator.
“Aww, and it rained the whole time?” you say, on the edge of your seat, begging them for more details. That’s right, tell me more about how you got hit with a surprise gratuity bill at the end while I thaw out my frozen fingers under a hairdryer.
In the spirit of that shared Schadenfreude, here are my worst Christmases to help you feel better about your own Christmas, if you need it.
Basically every Christmas from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s
These were the years when I served on the front lines of retail during the busiest times of the year. While everyone else was getting their holly jollies off at parties or making wreaths with mulled wine, I spent Christmas being a violently hungover elf. I stood in a shopping centre while parents abused me about the 45-minute wait to see Santa the Saturday before Christmas while I concentrated on breathing through my nose so I didn’t vomit over their little ones’ heads.
We might have offered the cheapest Santa photos in the city, but that came at the cost of providing staff with costumes made of breathable fabric. The customer feedback we received was “Santa looked sweaty” and the elves “weren’t believable”. Which might have been fair given I am nearly six foot tall and came from two train stops down the road instead of the North Pole. But what did they expect from a photo booth outside Aldi?
Then there was the time I had worked back-to-back shifts at a shop until it was Christmas Eve. I was on the home stretch. I might have been blamed for ruining a family’s Christmas because a very popular PlayStation game had sold out and Dad decided to do his shopping at 5.45pm the night Santa was due down the chimney. But the end was in sight. I still had a small hope of Christmas cheer.
[ ‘Trust me, I’m a family Christmas expert and these are the rules to live by’Opens in new window ]
Until I was called to the decorations department because two women were beating the shite out of each other over a scraggly display tree that had just been marked down to €15. As the hair extensions they tore out of each other’s heads hit the floor, so did the remains of my Christmas spirit, knowing I’d have to miss family dinner to stay back and write a report.
Then there was the manager who was so overwhelmed with the festive rush of customers that she decided to practise mindfulness. By locking herself in the store room with a six-pack of vodka premix cans. Leaving me on my own in a busy jewellery shop full of men on the 23rd of December who didn’t know if their partner wore silver or gold but expected me to, somehow.
That wasn’t even the worst thing she did. No, that was mandating that we play the CD she had burned specially. Which seemed to solely consist of Wham’s Last Christmas. On repeat. When she would go on break we would turn it off for some respite, only to have her storm back in demanding to know, “WHO TOUCHED THE CD?”
Remember to be nice to shop staff because we see you when you’re sleeping, we know when you’re awake, we know you’ve bought the same gift for both your mistress and your wife, so say please to us for goodness’ sake.
The grief-stricken Christmas
It was the first Christmas after my nephew had died and I should have not listened to my lovely boyfriend who insisted I join his family for Christmas. I should have stayed at home and put a blanket over my head. I can’t speak for the entire recently bereaved population, but sometimes letting us sit around and cry is less depressing than having to put on a happy face and paper hat to pretend like your heart isn’t trying to escape your body at all times. I could feel my sadness oozing out of my pores and stinking up the room.
[ Brianna Parkins: Things I have learned about grief after my nephew's deathOpens in new window ]
Then there’s all the lying. “What are your family doing at Christmas?” “Well actually we now start the day at a graveyard.” What a way to ruin someone’s Christmas morning cornflakes with that depressing answer. At least I was allowed to drink at 9am in the morning and have it deemed “getting into the spirit” rather than “a cry for help”.
These days I’ve started to enjoy Christmas again, but I still shudder when I hear the opening bars of Last Christmas.