Christmas is, by definition, a time for remembrance. Many will be remembering the birth of Jesus Christ. Others, like myself, will be remembering loved ones and past years that hold happy memories. And this is why Christmas is such a strong reminder that Nostalgia Depression is a thing. And that it is very, very real.
Every Christmas I have kept the same traditions, making Christmas the same as it has been for as long as I can remember. A big dinner with the family round, getting ready for the day with a fancy new outfit, listening to songs while cooking in the kitchen. But every year, the festive season has become less and less… festive? There’s no build-up, no excitement, no joy.
There has always been an anticlimactic vibe to Christmas Day. It feels like a massive wait for one day to be over and done with but it always felt worth it in the past. Something that no longer rings true. But, why?
That Good Ol’ Nostalgia Depression
When I think of Christmases past, my brain always goes to one point in my life. And it’s a point that at the time I thought was mundane and boring. But now, for me, it holds the best festive memories. I was a young adult, still living at home and working my first long-term job. I worked in a shopping centre that was rammed with Christmas cheer from September and I LOVED it. People were jollier, decorations were up, it was dark early enough for the lights to be lit up everywhere when I left work and I’d meet my sister after my shift to shop for presents during the late night opening hours.
Christmas was an also big day to look forward too because it is the first real day off a retail worker has. There’s no threat of being called in to cover anyone else, no delivery worries to think about, no customers shouting that you have sold the last item they desperately—as if their being ill-prepared for a day that fell on the same date every year was somehow my fault… and that gave it another level of sparkle.
Family members that have since been lost were still around and the Christmases that I hold in such high regard in my mind were still an active thing. And that’s the problem. Things that I connect to those Christmas days are impossible to replicate or have again. I cannot be a care-free 21 year-old, working a full-time retail job at Christmas (which sounds like hell but, as Dickens said “It was the best of times… “), I cannot have those family members again. I can no longer get off the cold bus in the December dark, walk to my front door and see my mum’s fairy lights wrapped around the bannister, shining through the front door window. So where does that leave Christmas?
Millennial Romanticising Tangent
I’m sure many generations think that their era was the ‘good old days’, but was there anything more magical than the 90s Christmas? The smell of the Argos catalogue, the crinkle of cheap expanding decorations, nativity plays. Tinsel. Just tinsel everywhere. Magic.
Ditching the Old Ways
While I have tried to preserve the traditions of old, I’ve realised that this year things need to change. I cannot recreate those days, they are gone and done and it only makes me sad to try—and fail. Trying to get ready in a fancy new outfit, cook a whole meal for the family, host family members and be a parent to 7 year old twins all day is exhausting. And the magic of it all being worth it has slowly rubbed off over the years. I felt like such a failure every December. Why couldn’t I manage it all and summon the feelings of the past?
This summer, I began to think in my head about the coming half of the year and the events I needed to prep for. Birthdays, anniversaries—and the dreaded Christmas Day plans. And I was dreading it. Another year I would get excited just to be disappointed by the festive season. I began to think back over the years and realised I was being so hard on myself. My mum cooked a great dinner because we were all adults, we could help and she didn’t have to babysit us. My family managed the children because there were so many grown-ups around for support, and other children for them to be distracted by. I could get ready in a nice outfit because I wasn’t a mum or the main host, I had free time. Now it was just me and I was putting all that same pressure on myself. So, I’m ditching all of it.
Ringing in the New
This year, times are a-changing. I’m cancelling Christmas dinner. But as my parent’s aren’t getting any younger, and my children aren’t either, I don’t want to miss the time spent together. So this year we are doing it on Christmas Eve instead. A much more relaxed atmosphere with a casual spread of festive food, saving the sit down dinner for the next day when it’s just my husband and kids I have to cook for. As the children get older, they can muck in and create their own memories.
We have made plans to go for a Christmas Eve walk around the village after dinner to see everyone’s lights and the twins are looking forward to making lanterns to hold as we go. The star on the tree will now be left off until that day, as my children have decided they want Grandpa to put it up every year as part of the new traditions. I hope that with a new blend, a new Christmas can be born. One that everyone will feel is worth the build-up. And I need to remind myself, it’s just a tester. If it sucks, next year something else can be done that works! I no longer need to hold so fast to the old, when the new is already here. I don’t want to miss it!
I know Christmas will never be the same for me, and I will probably always have some longing for the years gone by. I feel that is a natural, human response sometimes. But I really hope that making new traditions will give the twins the same magic that my past Christmases gave to me. And—shockingly—I have found myself once again excited at the thought of of the festive period this year!
