Miss-mas

Christmas is an odd time of year. There’s something about this holiday season that on the one hand, makes everything seem hopeful, makes us feel warm inside and encourages us to be more cordial to each other. But on the other hand, it can highlight all the things we are missing, whether because they are absent, inadequate, or things we just didn't have in the first place. It seems to bring out the best in some people and situations, but in others the worst. Why bad things seem worse and good things seem even better at Christmas, I don't know.

I am definitely not going to miss work for the week and a half I will be away from it. I will miss my workmates. The Mrs. and I are both missing loved ones, so much that we are already counting down the days until we get to see them in January. I am overcome with empathy at a decision she is wrestling with. I have fleeting thoughts of an old flame, of sadness at the fact that at times I wish we could be in each other's lives, while knowing that right now it is best that we are not. I am sad that one of my friends will not be taking the long country break she had planned with her boyfriend, because she will be caring for her mentally-ill mother over Christmas, while her father recovers from heart failure in hospital. I am concerned about my friend who will be seeing her absent father over the holiday period, only for him to leave for the other side of the world again in the new year. I am worried about her brother, who is back on drugs and drink, when he has a condition that is severely worsened by such things. I am thinking of an old friend who is trying to come to terms with infidelity and is struggling to cope with the discovery. I was alarmed to find out a friend I had been praying for daily a few months back has been taken into hospital, and then felt ashamed that I have not been praying for her recently, as I knew I should have been. I am thinking of my Boy, who is working long hours in a job he was lucky to keep amidst redundancies. I am missing him and desperately hoping that his plans to visit in January will not fall through. I am trying not to think of the mounting bills I have and the lack of funds with which to pay them. I get choked every evening, when I hear Christmas carols being sung at Victoria train station by groups raising money for charity.

On the other hand, I filled with thoughts of love and gratitude for everything I am blessed enough to have and for all the people I have in my life. I am still warmed by memories of the past weekend, when I had an early 'Christmas' dinner with my fam - Mum, Dad, Big Sis, Bro-in-law, and Bigger Sis, who doesn't 'do' Christmas. She came down to my parents' in a cab, armed with a four-course meal, consisting of wild mushroom soup (minestrone for Dad); a shepherds' pie made with Moroccan-style spiced lamb and beef, pine nuts, multicoloured raisins and sultanas and topped with the most perfect mashed potato; the finest chocolate mousse cake, topped with fruit, from Patisserie Valerie; then to finish, cheese with crackers: yummy brie, wensleydale with cranberries, cheshire, french roule and goat's cheese. I laughed at how silly we all are and how lucky I am that we all get on fairly well and actually enjoy spending time together, even if it doesn't happen like this all that often. I had a lovely time at our local carol service that we were invited to sing at by the vicar from the Church of England, whose hall we rent for our own church. We sang two new songs we had only learnt the week before. It took considerable effort to maintain enough breath to sing properly after all that food. Seriously. I did, however, manage to force down a homemade mince pie and some non-alcoholic mulled wine afterwards. We talked with our Latvian friends who I haven't seen for maybe six weeks. I had forgotten just how fond of them I am and realised that I had really missed them.

I am missing lots of people and things and situations at the moment, some in good ways, some in nostalgic ways, some in painful, rueful or yearnful ways and some in just good old-fashioned "wish you were here" kind of ways. But, clichéd as it sounds, everything happens for a reason. Maybe it's as the end of the year approaches that I am feeling more retrospective, but everything that happened this year, the good, the bad and even the ugly, I would not have missed for the world.