Or is it?
Christmas for me is a very tense and turbulent time.
It invokes a barrage of emotion that is more often than not, very, very difficult to manage, let alone cope with.
Christmas has always been a strange emotional river flowing through my life, growing up it was a time of tradition and truly a time of the great pretenders, where no matter what dramas were unfolding behind the scenes, what disappoints I was laying at my parents door, we bit our lips, wrapped our presents, donned of Dolce's and carried on regardless.
We were the true and original "Keep calm and carry on,"
It was a few days that mimicked pantomime season, Christmas Eve, the running of the gauntlet, drinks parties with people who you only saw once a year and didn't particularly care for, the vacuous, meaningless conversation always laden with great expectation. It was a time you would have your 'top trumps' style attributes and achievements ready to hedge your bets that you had done better this year than last, and that you were excelling in beauty, grace and brains over the children of your parents friends. It was like the Hunger Games with canapes and champagne.
Garish outfits, flashing earnings, shiny handbags, women with more lipstick on their teeth than on their lips, at a parties like these, it was entirely likely the women were eating their lipsticks in the bathroom as opposed to the blini's for fear of getting fat over the Christmas period.
Christine, you're a size 14 love, that smoked salmon and crème fraiche isn't going to open the floodgates, it the 40,000 lunches of 2005 that have lead you here.
From one to the next, with the argument as to who had drank what and therefore who should have been behind the wheel - it always amazes me, now, as a grown woman, the sheer lack of care and consideration, getting in a car, with your entire family, having had one too many glasses of fizz and knowingly heading onward. Especially at Christmas. A las, I lived to tell the tale, so I'll count my blessings accordingly.
There was of course one Christmas where I so rudely interrupted this Christmas tradition, and it's a huge factor of why I struggle at this time of year, to pull my mental health in line and move forward in a positive way. I thought it would get easier over time, but actually, it gets harder. The longer Sarah and I are together, the closer we get to starting our own family, and Christmas time of 2006 has somewhat marred that for me.
I was supposed to go home for Christmas in 2006, to embark upon the family frolics. I couldn't. I was laid up in Bronglais hospital, something my family didn't know about.
You see, on December 21st, I checked into the hospital for what was supposed to be a straight forward day job, to evacuate my life of the evil that had been left behind post-rape in October 2006. To say I was ready, was the understatement of the century, but the sheer horror of that man, clung to my body like a snake and duly tried to kill me in the process. Twice.
Once upon the fateful night and then again, when trying to rid myself of him altogether.
How do you tell your parents you can't come home for Christmas because you've found yourself recovering from a botched abortion? As an out and proud and "deal with it," gay girl, it wasn't something I was willing to give up.
Our family doctor, a family friend, he seemed the most logical to seek advice from. I called him and told him what had happened - surgery, not rape! and asked that if I did go home, at some point, would I be well enough, but really what I wanted to know, was could I pass myself off as fit and well so no questioned would be asked. He told me no, and that I was best telling my parents about it all. I told him that wasn't an option and decided to recooperate and head back at the earliest possible chance to avoid excessive questioning.
It was too late. Our doctor had called my father, a good friend of his, and shared all of the nitty gritty, where I was, why I was, and what to expect when I returned home to Manchester.
Cue phone call from irate father, I was a slut, I was incomprehensible, how could I? And then to lie lie lie? And what of this dyke business? Surely not if I was dropping my knickers for all the boys too.
I didn't know what to say, so I gave in, I agreed with him, it was easier than actually explaining that a 6ft something Nigerian man had attacked me just a few months before, because honestly, what I would have needed was love, support, holding, reassuring and there was no way, NO WAY in any version of me sharing that information I would have got the response I needed.
So I was a slut, who had a one night stand, with a nameless boy, and got up the duff. Class act. One wonders why my parents hate me so, and I can't help but think this has played its part.
Cue phone call from my mother, she was so angry. At my lack of morals, decency, safe sex, and then the true horror of my actions - the abortion. She told me I was selfish. How dare I be so flippant and do something that suited me when there were women crying out for the chance to have a child. I know she was angry and jealous, because I had thrown away something she so desperately wanted, but would she really have wanted me to keep a child born of such horrors? It was never an option for me. I look at my life now, at the age of 31 and to think I could have a 12 year old child baffles me. I know in my heart I would not have the capacity to love in that instance, so was I selfish? Yes. Do I regret it? Never.
That Christmas was the most painful I've had being with my family, and being the jezebel and the whore, when I was anything but. Even now, my father of course, knows the truth, he heard it from a solicitor in my mitigation for court, what a joy, to find out you have brutalised your daughter for something that you never knew the truth of.
I hope, I do, he lies awake at night and feels terrible, that despite all my flaws, in my time of absolute need, he wasn't there.
The laugh is, upon leaving court, he said, whilst looking me dead in the eyes "I think nows the time you just leave it behind and get over it, new start," and with that, I walked away in the opposite direction.
I've spent 12 years "getting over it" but when Christmas swings round, year on year, it creeps into my mind and I feel dirty, I feel hurt, I feel alone, I feel angry and I don't know what to do with myself.
Christmas 2010, the real clincher.
The one that tipped me well and truly over the edge.
A storm was brewing, I was back in Manchester full time, my mum didn't like that, she had grown accustomed to me and my sagas being at a safe distance, she hadn't quite wrapped her head around the whole homeless prostitute in London business and therefore couldn't quite fathom I had returned to the North to build bridges, get a job, have a roof over my head. I had made enough money to be able to do that. When needs must, you do what you have to do. I have no shame surrounding it anymore. It was entrepreneurial at a time of need, I was always in control, it was my choice to make and it empowered me in a way that was taken from me all those years ago.
Christmas Eve morning, mid-Christmas wrapping, a phone call
"Your father and I have decided it is best you don't come back for Christmas, so, don't, you're not welcome here, that's all there is to it,"
Phone down. Engraved in my memory.
I think I broke, in that second, something snapped.
I spoke to myself, in my flat
"Ok mummy, that's fine, no problem" I said, to no-one, the line was already dead.
I stood up and abandoned my half wrapped gifts and took myself into Manchester. Marks and Spencer's, I needed turkey if I was to be spending Christmas alone.
So I did a trolley dash, the whole sha-bang, Christmas extravaganza, this was a time of means and money, so I hit it hard.
Trolley full, booze and food, back to my halls I went.
I drank. I cried. I drank some more. I finished wrapping my presents.
Christmas morning 2010, I awoke, alone, in my single bed, to the dim lights on my £1 emergency Christmas tree and put on the television. Christmas tradition in the Barker house is always the same, wake up - bucks fizz, smoked salmon and eggs, presents, and then dress to impress.
Glass in hand, salmon half eaten, The Grinch now on the television in the background, I began to talk to myself.
"What presents have we got then?"
"Oh my, just what I wanted, Elizabeth I on dvd, how did you know? Oh, and Fival goes West,"
- these were the gifts I had bought my family, knowing they would love them, I had wrapped them the night before and duly opened them, as my own, with a running dialogue of insanity.
I cooked my Christmas dinner, ate it alone, in abject silence, even going as far as to pull my own cracker and wear my hat, laugh at the joke and sigh at the shit gift inside.
3 bottles of Marks and Sparks Kir Royale, and a bottle of Bucks Fizz I was 3 sheets to the wind.
A house party invitation from people I didn't particularly like, but hey, it was better than being alone all day right?
I took along a sterdy pack of strongbow and drank the lot. I don't remember getting home.
I sat cross legged in the middle of my kitchen surrounded by silver medication packs and began to eat. And drink. And eat. And drink.
I lost my mind, smashed up the flat, smashed my phone, and then passed out in a puddle of purple sick.
The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital. The halls of residence maintenance man had heard my racket and found me lying unconscious covered in vomit. Merry Christmas to that man. He had physically carried me into the A&E department which was walking distance from the halls and saved my life.
Bastard.
At least I thought so when I opened my eyes on boxing day. Unimpressed.
But seeing as though I wasn't dead, I decided I would be better off in my little flat than I would in the hospital and duly disappeared, the hospital called the police and I was swiftly back in my bed on the ward. After much theatrics and promises, and absolute lies, I convinced the psych doctor and the doctor doctor that it was a moment of sadness, madness and should I feel not myself, I would come right back, but that I would much rather recover, with my broken stomach, at home.
They relented, I won.
The 28th December 2010, I'm allowed home and for some reason, all I can think about is the girl I've been messing around with. She had been trying to get in touch with me, when I turned on my mangled phone, she was full of Merry Christmasses and lovely messages and I wondered if my sane brain had seen those, would I have been so stupid?
Impulsively and in a state of desperation to see another human face that might want to see mine, I invited her over, for nothing more than films and a cuddle, the original Netflix and chill.
She jumped at the chance, and was in my arms within hours. I told her I wasn't feeling too great, and had had a bit of turn over Christmas and she commenced operation "make Fran better,"
She didn't know. She just cared. For the girl she had got to know. Who made her laugh. I didn't really want her to change that view, and see me as some drama laden nut job.
- of course she knows that now! 8 years on.
She tucked me up in my little bed, and lay next to me, while I slept.
Strange intimacy for two people who were supposed to just be casual.
We weren't supposed to fall in love. But she saved me. She always bloody saves me.
Christmas for the past 8 years, have been the best of my life.
Hard, impossibly hard, but to wake up in the arms of someone you truly adore and who loves you no matter who you are, what you've done, or who you were before, its true love, and liberation.
I still have deeply ingrained Christmas traditions, but not because they are Barker-isms, but because they are part of who I am, and they are what makes me happy, and I love that I get to share them with Sarah.
I want is to be the most wonderful time of the year, and perhaps it will be, its certainly moving towards a more positive place.
I suppose the point of this blog, is that Christmas isn't the most wonderful time of the year for some, its lonely, and thought provoking and it can invoke negative behaviours and immense anxiety and depression, so take care of your friends and your family.
One thing I have learned this Christmas is that without a shadow of a doubt, I know who is worthy of experiencing and living 2019 with me and who most certainly is not.
Positives over negatives my friend.
And breathe
