Juggling Christmas as the Child of a Broken Family

Christmas has never been an easy time of year for me. My parents broke up when I was three, so I only have very vague memories of Christmas as a family unit. My father stayed in Whangārei after the split, and my mother, my brother and I moved around Northland, Kaipara and Rodney, though, in recent years, we have all returned to the Whangārei area.

As a child, I thought having two households was a blessing – most people only had one, so I considered myself privileged. But it was always an awkward arrangement, travelling between homes, especially at that time of the year when unity of family is given so much importance and emphasis. For me, there was always a sense of guilt involved with Christmastime. My brother and I would usually spend the morning with one parent, and be collected after lunch to spend Christmas afternoon and evening in the other household. Although organising the schedule of the day was not my responsibility, I felt a certain accountability for whichever parent we left behind. Even as a young child, this weighed on me, and it was only compounded by having a stepfamily enter the mix, adding another familial obligation on Christmas day. Fun as Christmas was, there was always a lot of road time, and that sense of have abandoned someone I loved in order to be with someone else I loved equally. In all honesty, it was pretty tough.

As I’ve become older and more independent, Christmas has become less of a dilemma for me, but no less a logistical juggle. A penniless student in Wellington, I spent at least one Christmas entirely on my own, managing to not see a single person until heading to a friend’s for dinner in the evening. I spent the day gardening with my cat, and didn’t think too much of it until my mother rang to wish me merry Christmas and remind me I was loved.

Having lived overseas for years, I experienced a totally different sort of Christmas – Yuletides spent in the chilly north of India with expats from around the world – where family didn’t feature at all except via Skype. These Christmases were easier, in a way. Everyone was apart from their families, and we had our own “orphans’” events in lieu of the traditional family get-togethers that everyone was used to. I got to experience cold – if not white – Christmases, Polish festive dishes, European and Indian Christmas traditions including Midnight Mass in an old stone church surrounded by the deodar forests of the Himalayas.

Participating in Christmases in such a different climate made me nostalgic for New Zealand summer – beaches, salads, raw fish, sunburn, swimming and of course, the obligatory Christmas Day rain – the things I associated with Christmas in Northland. It made me realise that pohutukawa trees have a certain smell, and the aroma of dehydrating pine needles isn’t in itself an unpleasant thing – I had, perhaps, associated it with the long, hot days between Christmas and my birthday (on December 31) when I was anticipating a repeat of the same parental juggle that happened on the 25th.

While living in India, I was absolved of the responsibility of my parents’ happiness – after all, I couldn’t do anything about it from the other side of the world. But there were things I missed about Christmas back home, and I came to recognise and appreciate them. I loved sharing stories about Southern Hemisphere traditions with my friends from the North. Unlike we Antipodeans who are bombarded with Northern Christmas imagery every year, the picture of a Southern beach Christmas with barbeques and salads, sand and sunblock and swimming in the sea is the most absurd of polarities to a European or North American.

As I’ve aged, Christmas has become more more enjoyable. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the childhood guilt I had about leaving one parent on their own has faded, dulled by the realisation that my parents’ happiness isn’t solely my responsibility, and they are both quite capable of being happy even when I’m not around. That doesn’t mean I don’t try to see them both on Christmas Day – I still had to make an elaborate schedule this year to include both my mother and my father, as well as other family – it’s just that I no longer carry the unnecessary weight of responsibility I used to feel. This year, I actually made things even more complicated by working Christmas dinner with my partner’s family into the plan. This meant more driving and less wine than I would have liked, but it also meant spending the evening with a very different sort of family – one that has maintained a tight fusion throughout the years. It is lovely to have finally understood and been a part of that feeling of familial unity that has for so long alluded me, and to have spent Christmas with the people who mean the most to me in the world at this moment.