If there is anything my twenties have taught me is to let go of expectations. True, I ended up giving up on kinds and levels of dreams possible, but learning to not expect anything from the world is a massive part of growing up. On the bright side, life has rewarded me with the most fantastic memories whenever I was able to truly let go of expectations. Last Christmas was living proof. Nothing went according to plan, but I was surrounded by my support network and, despite all the pain that had been caused a few days before, I felt loved. And isn’t that what Christmas is supposed to be all about?

As I have said before, I grew up very distant from my whole family. There is though, lost in my memories, one particular Christmas during the first decade of this century when we hosted a big part of the family. The house was crowded of uncles and grandparents and I could experience what a big Christmas felt like and I loved it. I spent the final week of that year overhearing how it all had been troublesome to my mother and my joy soon turned itself into guilt.

Also as I have said before, my mother treated Christmas as a ‘family gathering’, so no boyfriends were ever allowed. That rule also applied to my straight sister, so I never took it personally.

In 2012, when I was dating Peter and living with him in a different state, mom had me fly back home for Christmas. He was really happy he was also flying home to see his family. I don’t know if this is already old story, but during the whole time we were back in town, we only met for a dreadful New Year’s Eve and that was surely foreshadowing. So, no boyfriend for Christmas that year.

I remember in full detail the following holidays. That is no spectacular feat of my terrible memory, it’s just that it was a truly boring and empty night.

Oliver worked in retail and Christmas time saw him work basically round the clock without any day off from the first of December until Christmas eve, when he was allowed to leave work at six in the afternoon. How sweet of his employers, huh?

So, things were settled. My father would drop by, collect me and the food I had prepared to help with the supper, we’d go pick Oliver up at work and drive to my mother’s house. I don’t really remember what time we arrived there. Seven, maybe?

My niece was two going three and the first child born into the family since my turn twenty-three years before. She was of an age when anything sparkly attracted her like crazy, so you can imagine how the child was feeling inside an extremely-well-lit living room with lots of colours and shiny ornaments.

This is one thing I really hate about parents. They think their children are the most important and special beings in the entire universe. Of course they’re entitled to such feeling. After all, without it, I take it’d be impossible to have the strength to raise anyone. But they always fail to understand that the kid is theirs and not everybody else’s. Parents tend to expect the whole world to treat their infants as if they’re queens and kings. I love children. I really do. I just hate parents. They’re the obnoxious pieces of fuck who get those amazing beings and turn them into pieces of shit.

I had forgotten to wrap my presents, so, when I arrived, I went straight to my mother’s suite to finish the job and get ready for the party. I didn’t rush, but I didn’t deliberately take forever as my sister insisted on saying the whole night. It took us, Oliver and I, two adults, about two hours to wrap all of our presents (which we did in turns as the other was taking a shower), take those showers, and get dressed. I still don’t think that was prolonged, more than five years later. Still, every ten minutes or so, my sister would come to the room to hurry me up because her daughter was impatient to open the presents. I used as excuse my uncle who hadn’t arrived yet. Geez, when he did she became uncontrollable. I lost count how many times I was called selfish to my face for making a small child wait in longing like that.

All along, memories of Christmases in my childhood kept flooding my mind. It was tradition. We would have our supper sometime after ten, which was when grandma arrived home from church. A few minutes before midnight I would go to bed pretend to sleep so Father Christmas would drop my present under the tree (I learned the truth at the age of four. I pretended to believe until the age of ten. What? Lose an extra present? Are you crazy?) and go back to the living room so the whole family would exchange and open presents. It was our tradition for the one night of the year that calls the most for tradition. And you were calling me selfish because it wasn’t even ten and I was delaying and causing agony to a toddler? Really?

I remember it like yesterday. I went down the stairs holding presents and was met by Cher knows how many pairs of angry stares whose owner’s names were on the tags under my arms. I went to the kitchen to my sister’s dismay and despair and loud complaints to get me a cup of soda. I thought we would get the chance to socialise a little, you know? Catch up with those relatives you care for and haven’t seen in a while. I was wrong.

Then my sister had a brilliant idea. Let’s get the toddler to deliver ALL of the presents!

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Fucking hate parents.

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You could see it in her face that she was not happy with the task. Plus, I bet anyone could see it in my face that I wasn’t happy for not having the chance of giving the presents I had chosen.

You see. I love presents. I absolutely love to spend hours, days, thinking of a nice way to please you with something I chose. I take effort into getting people gifts, into wrapping them, and when I give them their packages, I like to tell a bit of anything interesting that might have happened during the journey. I like to make them know ‘I did not just buy the first thing I saw. You’re special to me. I enjoyed using my time trying to make you happy’. But I didn’t even have the time to tell people anything for, sensing my niece was tired and fed up, my sister started rushing through the whole present-giving.

Supper was just as rushed and for a split-second so fast they almost skipped my grandmother’s blessing. She. Was. Pissed. Think of a very short old lady who has seen a lot of fuckery in her time. She wasn’t having it. I think it was my mother the first to see the signs of danger and called everyone back into the kitchen for a family prayer. I’m not religious, but grandma is. And I was at grandma’s house. So I’ll put down my head in silent prayer and follow her lead without questioning or anything. Also, I felt a little avenged, so it was a great plus and I was living for it. You go, nanna! Show them who’s the fucking boss.

It wasn’t even eleven pm when the presents had been exchanged, the supper had been eaten, my uncle had left or, in short, Christmas was over.

Have I mentioned nanna is extremely religious? I have, right. I mean religious to the point of wearing that ribbon thing old catholic ladies wear with the symbol of the Christ’s heart on it, that’s how religious she is. Christmas was over before eleven pm.

Christmas was over before it was actually Christmas.

She.

Was.

PISSED.

Bitch, I’m telling you. I was pissed, but that was nothing compared to the old lady. She was fuming.

Oliver, seeing the party was over before it was meant to get started, asked if he could excuse himself. After all, he had just finished a twelve-hour-a-day twenty-four-day work shift and he was obviously exhausted. He had worked so much and so hard our dog barely knew him. He was also uncomfortable. Can you blame him, though? He had not spent Christmas with his family in exchange for that.

Before I knew it, we were both fast asleep before midnight.

But before we slept something special happened. He kissed my forehead and said he loved me.

I know he had said that before, I have been following this story. But it was the first time he said it after having proof it was insane to enter that universe. That felt special. So special I didn’t say ‘I love you too’.

‘Thanks.’

‘For what?’ He said almost in a whisper as he held his arms around my back.

‘For staying. Not that you have a choice anyway, it’s late and dangerous to leave. But you know what I mean. For being with me.’

‘Ralph. I’ll always be with you, as long as you want me to.’

‘I’ll always want it.’

‘So I’ll always be with you.’

‘And I will too.’

Thinking about those words and trying to forget that awful Christmas, I allowed myself to fall asleep, thinking how the fuck was I supposed to convince him to come back the next year.

Little did I know I wouldn’t have to.

That was the last Christmas I spent with my family.