I have a history of putting my family through hell at Christmas. As a teenager, I would inexplicably manage to get heartbroken every year just before the holidays began. So instead of my Christmases being about turkey, Taboo, and trying not to swear in front of Grandma, they were mostly a montage of Mum coming upstairs to find me sprawled across my bed listening to the Backstreet Boys, trying to choke myself on a chocolate orange.
It became a warped tradition. “It wouldn’t be Christmas if Tamar hadn’t been dumped”, Mum would say. Loudly. To the checkout staff in Sainsbury’s. Many of whom were handsome. (None of whom cared).
I had so many sour Christmas moments that should have been special: daydreaming my way through dinner about conversations that would never take place, being inarticulate in Taboo because I was too busy waiting for a text. I couldn’t even enjoy the game my siblings invented where you try and say the rudest thing you can in front of Grandma without her hearing aid picking it up. It was tragic.
It got worse when I could legally leave the house. At 20, I returned home a devastatingly heartbroken university student because the young man I had been ‘seeing’ had snogged someone else and started ignoring me (standard). On Christmas eve, I went to the pub by myself, ordered my usual (a bottle of wine with a straw) and flirted with all of the boys I would never be seen dead accepting on Facebook in the sober light of day.
I actually had a great time, until I got delivered home (or, more accurately, ‘dropped’ home) at 2am by an as-of-yet unidentified pair of biceps. My sister answered the door with a worried look on her face, which, after being carried inside, I discovered was because she had identified said pair of biceps as belonging to one of the ‘naughty twins’ who used to be in her primary school class. “I’m afraid, Tamar”, she said, with a mixture of horror and admiration. “That I think you just got with a 16-year-old.” (I’m not nearly as ashamed of this as I should be.)
At the time, however, I was mortified. When I was sick on Christmas Day from a mixture of shame and Shiraz, my Mum held my hair back and suggested that perhaps, finally, enough was enough. And the Backstreet Boys CD mysteriously disappeared from the home collection.
Fast-forward to five years later, and I am returning home for my first Christmas as a single adult. After some healthy, happy, having-a-boyfriend Christmases, I am facing this one solo once more. And honestly, I couldn’t be more excited. Because for the first time literals ever, I am not heartbroken. I am a sensible, independent, non-hysterical grown-up, and I cannot wait to not put my family through hell. It’s taken 25 years, but my goodness, I’ve finally got my priorities straight – and this year, I will not be spending one second thinking about men. Not crushes, not exes, not Tom Hardy… because Christmas is just so not about them! It’s time for me to start making it up to my family for all those years of teenage angst. And I begin, by turning my phone off.
Of course, my mother doesn’t believe a word of it. She’s hiding chocolate oranges, she’s banning boybands, she’s warning the local secondary schools… She is deeply concerned. And, to be fair, she does know me better than I know myself. So I might have to let you know how this one turns out.
