In praise of the smaller Christmas

By Elaine Blanchard/Young

The traditional Christmas morning scene sent to me from friends and family is one of scrunched-up wrapping paper, an abundance of gifts, smiling faces of grandparents, parents, and offspring of varying age groups. It’s a day full of love, laughter and squabbles over the festive film or Christmas special of The Wheel…

My Christmas scene has always looked a bit different. Growing up an only child with a small extended family, the day was often just the three of us, so no different to any other meal. That is, apart from the small matter of working our way through 24 crackers, and eating too much gift chocolate throughout the day, meaning we barely touched the turkey. And that meant the large bird would feature on the menu for the next five days (and my dad hated poultry so it was turkey for two).

I would ask (and receive) board games every year and patiently wait for one of my parents to make up the two-player minimum for me. In fact, I would have preferred the maximum number of people playing a board game. As a young adult, I persuaded my parents to go out for Christmas lunch instead, and that gave the day a structure –?and no washing up, no leftovers, no guilt over not finishing everything on the plate.

Later still, hosting my own Christmas events with friends and family, the day has always been low-key, even when I introduced my husband James into the mix. We never planned to have children, but as friends started settling down, baby’s first Christmas cards were bought and names were added to gift lists. Christmas for all of them became an expanding family affair; ours stayed the same.

Dad passed away in November 2012 and it was back to three again… until 2018 when James, Mum and I merged our families, and 11 of us had Christmas together in the Lake District. It was overwhelming. Evenings were spent playing Uno and Articulate with the maximum number of players, which I found equally exciting and exhausting.

Since 2019 it’s been just the two of us. We love Christmas and do as many Christmassy things as possible. We always have two trees and we see as many friends and family as we can. Christmas Day might look a certain way on a Hallmark card, but that’s not the only way. While mine were always small and are now smaller still, they were always with the people I loved and love most in life. It's the Christmas spirit that matters.

My 3 top tips for getting a good Christmas balance are:

1 Plan ahead so you get to celebrate throughout the season with friends and family.

2 Be flexible and don’t feel disappointed if other people’s plans change. Have a list of parks, markets and festive restaurants to try, so you can still have a fun plan B if plan A fails.

3 Create and maintain your own traditions, whether it’s Christmas Eve lunch at the local pub, a Christmas afternoon hike, or a Boxing Day movie marathon.

Ed's note: We're off this year for a much-scaled-down Christmas in the tropics. As much as I do love a huge Chrimbo with all the trimmings, I can't wait for this year's minimal version. Meanwhile, look out for door no. 9 on 18 December.