I'm Ready To Do Christmas Alone

Christmas alone. It’s a loaded concept, an idea hidden behind a door I have kept locked ever since I became a mom 30 years ago. Maybe even before. I come from a big family. I gave birth to a big family. My big family gets bigger all the time, and this expansion has defined Christmas for us all but I think especially me. I’ve been terrified to think of Christmas any other way. To me there has never been any other way forward, no other way to celebrate Christmas, than in a big tangle of matching pajamas and eggs benedict and stockings loaded up on the fireplace.

I’ve spent so many years keeping Christmas for all of us, tugging everyone back closer together. Baking the cookies I’ve always baked, stuffing the stockings I’ve always stuffed. Decorating the same tree with the same box of the same ornaments that mean so much to us all. The rhythm of our holidays is as familiar to me as breathing, as welcome as slipping into my favorite warm pajamas. This is maybe the most beautiful time of my year. I cling to Christmas.

What happens if I let go?

My four sons and their partners might see a different future for themselves. They have started to imagine a quiet Christmas morning together in their own homes with their pets and their own beds and their someday children. Christmas day with the rest of the family might be switched to Dec. 28 or some time in the new year. A natural progression from the big family to their own family. This is right and natural and exactly as it should be. And I don’t want to be the big question mark standing in the way of this for them.

So Christmas alone will happen someday. I’m sure of it. And I’ve decided it’s time to imagine what that could look like for me.

What if, one of these years, I give my family the gift of doing their own Christmas? What if I stop clinging and let them become their own family? What if I call them all and say, “Why don’t we do a Christmas brunch on another day?” What would that look like?

Maybe I would go to Avignon, a city I love in the south of France. Maybe I would rent that little studio my friend has long been offering. Maybe I would go to church on Christmas Eve in Avignon, have cocktails with that friend. A fellow mother who has chosen Christmas alone several times. A woman who loves her family and loves the holidays but walks through the world unbothered. Maybe I could be like her. Maybe I would ride my bike along the Rhone on Christmas Day. Maybe I would call my kids in the afternoon. Maybe I would have gone to the market to stock up on the cheese and bread and wine and olives and dips I love the most. Maybe I would change into my pajamas and have a feast in bed and watch movies.

Maybe I would like that just fine.

Or maybe I would go on a cruise. Somewhere cold and different like Norway, where I would wear thick sweaters and thick socks and drink thick hot chocolate and keep an eye out for the northern lights. Or a wellness retreat in Costa Rica. A little yoga, a little nap, a good massage and fresh fruit and sunshine.

I could do this kind of Christmas. More than that, I can imagine myself being happy celebrating Christmas like this. Not every year, of course, but sometimes. I don’t think I could spend Christmas alone at home, there would be ghosts in every corner. Memories of my family in the kitchen, in the living room, outside around the bonfire. This does not interest me.

I’m realizing now that I am a different kind of woman throughout the rest of the year. A solo traveler, an adventurer, a person in my own right. I like this version of me all year. I’m happy being her. My kids like her too. And yet I put this woman away with my summer clothes at Christmas, turn back into mom more than anything else.

So maybe Christmas on my own will be my gift to me too. To take a break from being the keeper of Christmas and just be a witness to Christmas.

Because I know there is a Christmas together waiting for us after my Christmas alone. We can come back together on a different day. We can improvise a little. We can do Secret Santa and turkey dinner. Baileys in our morning coffee if we have the entire day. Card games around the table. A return to all of the things I love about us and new things they can bring from their own adult lives.

Spending Christmas alone doesn’t have to mean anything about us as a family because I will be coming back to us as a family.

I think I’m ready to give it a shot.

Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible, she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once, but she’s open to requests.