12 Years of Christmas

The First Christmas - 2002

It was Christmas Eve. I should have been in London. I should have been out with my mates, getting pissed whilst listening to a god-awful soundtrack of Christmas classics. I should have been chatting up sequin-clad women wearing dresses so short, and so low-cut, that they risked hypothermia the moment they stepped outside in their towering heels. I should have had those women drape their naked arms across my back; leaning into me with a cloud of heavy perfume and an eyeful of cleavage. They should have flirted with me outrageously, hoping that - it being the season of goodwill - I'd happily buy them drink after drink, and my reward would be a tantalising kiss under the mistletoe.

I wasn't in London. I was in rural Oxfordshire. Instead of the chill scent of car exhausts and overflowing bins littering the pavement, there was the rancid, musky smell of mulchy leaves, and it cloyed to my nostrils, turning my stomach. There wasn't a flash bar full of people my own age. There were no women clad in skimpy dresses. There was my dad and younger brother, sat in uncomfortable silence around the kitchen table.

'What time is this woman coming, then?' I asked, impatiently, as I scrolled through the messages on my phone. My mates were having the time of their lives without me. I envied them their Christmas morning hangovers; the mad dash back to their families, where they'd get to break the speed limit on the eerily quiet, Christmas Day roads. Me? I'd be safely tucked up in bed, just in time for Santa to leave my stocking at my feet.

'Not this woman,' Dad complained. 'She's called Eleanor, and she'll be here at seven, in time for dinner.' I was predisposed to hate the woman, on account of Dad's dating her, and it was their fledgling relationship which meant that I had been ordered home on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning. We were going to have a "family dinner".

'Isn't it a bit much?' Luke whined, glowering across the table at our father. 'You've only known her five minutes, and already she's insinuating herself into our Christmas Eve; already she's got us running home to sit around the dining table together!' I gave Luke an irritated look. Not because I didn't resent this stupid dinner we were to have, but because Luke was only eighteen and had just started university.

'You didn't have to run anywhere!' I scoffed. 'You live here. You would've been eating dinner with Dad, anyway. I, on the other hand, had plans.' Dad sighed in resignation and I felt a tiny bit bad for him. Mum had died eight years ago, and as far as I knew, he hadn't properly dated, since. I hoped he'd got lucky once or twice. Eight years without a woman? Unthinkable.

'Can you at least try to sound enthusiastic when El arrives?' Dad asked, pleadingly.

'Will do,' I said, rising from the table and grabbing a beer from the fridge.

'Come on, Matt!' Dad winced. 'Don't start drinking yet; I don't want you all bleary-eyed before El arrives. What'll she think of you if you're pissed already?' I rolled my eyes in irritation, and shoved my beer back in the fridge, slamming the door with unnecessary force. I was fast beginning to hate this El bitch, whoever she was. First, she'd stopped me from having my customary Christmas Eve night out with the guys, and now I wasn't even allowed a beer in my own home, and it was six-sodding-thirty!

'Is it that big a deal, Dad?' I asked, in clipped tones, turning to stare at him in accusation.

'It is, actually. I really like this woman, and I don't want you scaring her off.'

'How can you really like her?' Luke asked, witheringly. 'You've only been seeing each other six weeks!'

'Six months,' Dad said, quietly, before quickly standing up and making to leave the kitchen. 'I've been seeing her six months, and I'd like us all to have dinner this evening, so that she can get to know you. Don't make it awkward.'