‘It’s day three hundred and sixty of the kids singing and the band playing, and I’m starting to wish it wasn’t Christmas every day,’ I said, my paper hat falling down over my eyes. ‘I’d feel rude sending my family home though.’
Sombre nods spread around the circle, everyone at the Christmas Song Support Group feeling my pain.
‘I hear you,’ said Bethan. ‘When the first partridge in a pear tree arrived, I thought, how romantic. But by day six, my neighbour with the bird phobia had called the police. It was the twelve drummers drumming that got me evicted. I didn’t have the heart to tell my true love that it was too much.’
Daniel was the longest-standing member. Every year without fail, he gave away his heart only to have it cruelly given away on Boxing Day. Despite his resolutions to give it to someone special next time, it inevitably happened again.
‘We must destroy these songs!’ said Daniel. ‘We could get them banned? Or better still, find a way to time-travel and kill the people who wrote them!’
Paul, the group leader, stroked his beard, regarding each of us with sharp blue eyes.
‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘whether it’s the songs that need changing, or something within each of you? Take a look outside. There’s Christmas music playing in the town square right now. How is it affecting those people?’
We all peered out the window. A crowd had gathered, bobble hats and smiling faces illuminated beneath the Christmas lights as they joined hands and sang.
‘They look happy,’ we chimed.
Paul furrowed his brow. ‘So what unites all of you in your misery surrounding these songs?’
‘Well…’ Bethan chewed her lip. ‘Maybe we find it hard to, I don’t know, be assertive?’
Paul’s eyes lit up like Christmas trees. ‘Ahhh!’ he said.
I looked down at my shoes. They still had glitter on them from all the present-wrapping, and they sparkled like a thousand winking eyes trying to tell me something.
‘I must admit, if I told my family to go home, Christmas might finally end,’ I said.
Bethan’s voice trembled. ‘I… suppose I could tell my true love what sort of gifts I really like.’
‘And I could be more protective of my heart,’ said Daniel.
‘Let’s recruit a Christmas song to help us practise assertiveness.’ Paul attached his phone to some speakers. ‘How about this?’
‘It was Christmas Eve, babe…’ rasped Shane MacGowan.
After half an hour of shouting, ‘Happy Christmas, your arse, I pray God it’s our last!’, we were feeling primed and ready to stand up for ourselves.
*
A year on, we join together around the Christmas tree in the square. Daniel is happily single. Bethan is sporting a beautiful solitaire ring, the only gift this year from her true love. And I haven’t seen a turkey in twelve months.
‘From now on our troubles will be out of sight,’ we sing. ‘And have yourself a merry little Christmas night.’
