December is on its way. You are all in the countdown until Christmas. I can hear you all wrapping and plotting. Writing lists and checking off names. Putting up Christmas Trees. Rediscovering decorations. I know you are thinking about what you will eat and who will be at the table. You will wonder whether your present is the right one and maybe what you might receive. You will think about the music and what wine to serve. Christmas will be a delightful focus for you in the month ahead. 
But not for me. You see I don’t have the Christmas spirit. I don’t know where it went. Well actually I do know where it went. I am quite prepared for a blinding silence as you read this. That hauled in breath. I know it is your favorite season. But I need to get this said. I need to get these words out of the way if you like. I am not good with Christmas. Our John calls me the Grinch. But that is OK because it means I don’t have to explain or pretend to behave any differently. And really it is hard to understand. I will try to explain it to YOU though, why my heart elevates to an unreachable place at Christmas. Why my soul becomes a watcher. Why I go into a hiatus. A waiting time. A flux.
When my children were small their father and I separated, then divorced. I was in my late twenties. I had five live children. My own mother had already died, my own family dispersed. Every year after that, for fourteen years actually, I spent Christmas alone. My children went to have Christmas with their beloved Grandmother. Their fathers mother. She was a wonderful person, she adored her grandchildren. She died a year ago and I know my children will miss her terribly this Christmas. Every single summer they would travel almost to the top of New Zealand with their father and have Christmas with Oma and Opa. This was their tradition. I am deeply grateful that we ensured that they were with her each year. My kids and I are very close. We kind of grew up together. They understand this Christmas thing. We did the right thing at Christmas. 
Now please don’t get me wrong. I was not a sorry orphan at Christmas. I woke up alone on Christmas morning but I had friends to visit, usually for an early breakfast. Then they would go to their families for lunch, (twice I was even kidnapped to go to their parental homes with them but it was not right because my aloneness followed me like a silent cat, I was hopeless) so turning down all their kind offers to accompany them, I would proceed to my project. I always set myself a Christmas Day Project. I had a wonderful darkroom in an old walk-in safe in a very old abandoned railways workshop right beside the sea. It was an enormous mystery of a space. So I would take my dog and work in there. Just close the door and be gone for hours. With my antique enlarger and my rickity timer with its loud click, click. Darkrooms are perfect for absenting yourself. Time means nothing in a darkroom. 
When I came up for air (literally) I would go home smelling of fixer, wet black and white prints drying on a towel on the back seat of my family sized station wagon and I would make my Christmas lunch. I always ate the same thing. For my Christmas Dinner every Christmas, I had fillet steak and mashed potatoes with gravy (made with Marmite of course) and a salad. For years I rented the movie Breakfast at Tiffanys. Every year I would pour myself a glass of champagne, sit on the couch, put my bare feet up on the old scarred science classroom coffee table with fifty year old rude words carved into it, all the windows open to the day and eat my fillet steak and mashed potatoes with gallons of gravy and say Holly Golightly’s lines for her with my mouth full. I know this sounds a bit sad but really it was not. My kids were having a great time. They would spend the whole afternoon at the beach with their grandparents, cousins and family. They always did. They were not with me so I was with myself. I was still. Does this make any sense? No-one bothers you on Christmas day. Stillness and aloneness are allowed.
Later that day in the lovely warm Christmas evening I would take my three legged black dog whose name was Marzellet Mazout the Marzipan Kid and we would go for a walk. A really long walk. No-one is on the roads at Christmas, all the shops are closed. All the cars are gone. On Christmas afternoon New Zealand goes to the beach, so the coastal town became my own town. There was a magical Christmas hush that I used to believe was my consolation prize. This massive empty moment, when you long for your children’s voices but know that they are well and loved. Not being all together is OK. My aloneness was OK. I walked. Time ceased to matter. The endless clatter in my head gentled. 
But along the way I lost the day. Christmas Day lost me. Like a bright red balloon my Christmas Spirit unravelled from my fingers and floated away.
Of course Boxing Day was a completely different story. Boxing day was party day at Celi’s. My bright scented garden would heave with friends and music and laughter on Boxing Day. We would carry couches and tables and chairs under the trees and have ourselves A Time. But I can still feel my Christmas Day stillness. The Christmas Day waiting. It was strangely precious. No mirror. No acting. No pretending. Just a deep quiet that no other day offers.
I do give Christmas presents, but not always on Christmas Day. I love to give presents so I give them when I find them. I am hopeless at wrapping and keeping secrets. I do not understand Christmas Trees.
I am again without my children this Christmas and so I feel that stillness approaching like a silent cool low mist. You never grow out of missing your children. From the moment they are born you are afraid when they are out of your sight. There are many, many parents like me who know this. Many, many parents who spend Christmas Day alone. Many, many people without children who spend this day alone. A few of my own children will be without family far away out there in the world.
And if YOU are alone on Christmas Day, then you are in good company. Being alone is like being Free. You have time to Make a Plan. Let it be special.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
122 responses to “The Christmas Mist – Alone on Christmas Day”
A very beautiful and honest post. I felt like you for about 15 years after my divorce – I mourned the children I never had and the family Christmases that were never going to happen. I escaped in different ways but, unfortunately, was never allowed to be alone. It was not so bad, mostly, but people worry about you “not having fun”. I think people should be allowed to do their own thing, make their own choices. Big Man is slowly coming back round to Christmas – I think he´s still where I was and I have to respect that too. Now, though, I enjoy a scaled down version. Sometimes it´s just the two of us but we do it our way…a mixture of tradition and new stuff. And yes, now I love it again and I´m looking forward to my first Christmas in Spain with my parents….and Big Man of course!
They do worry don’t they our friends. We all have to come to ourselves in our own time too. How lovely to be having Christmas in your beautiful mountains with your handsome man. I look forward to seeing what you make to wear! A fabulous skirt again maybe?. c
You have a beautiful self awareness…
Jess
Thank you, Jessica. I know how much you love christmas and look forward to seeing how your decorate that lovely tree.. c
With my parents both gone now, I sometimes spend Christmas alone and it’s never bothered me. I think too many buy into the hype that it has to be a Norman Rockwell Christmas to be good. Like you, I’ve got a few things that I do and cook that mean “Christmas” to me and I spend an enjoyable day. And if Max doesn’t discover where I’ve hid the toilet paper, unlike last year, Christmas Day will be very special.
Very true, there are many different ways of enjoying this day, having toilet paper would be one of them I think!!. When we are alone the food we eat is absolutely our own favorite food, like your late night pasta dish. c
I really don’t know how to respond to this because I’ve never been alone on Christmas. It would be too difficult for me. The line then that really struck me, that I can relate to, is this: “You never grow out of missing your children.”
Several years ago my second daughter was studying abroad in Buenos Aires and missed Christmas back home in Minnesota. Her absence was difficult for me. This year she’ll miss Christmas because she will be on-call as a Spanish medical interpreter 5 1/2 hours away in eastern Wisconsin. We could drive to spend the holiday with her. But we are opting instead to gather with my 79-year-old mom and extended family because each Christmas with my mom is a gift. A gift.
Thanks, C. for sharing your touching thoughts on Christmas.
Lovely that you will be gathering with your Mother, and second daughter will catch up I am sure. Sounds like she has a good job though and that is a blessing in itself! Lovely to hears from you as always Audrey.. c
The world is a big place and full of people who have their own way of dealing with this season. I can’t even begin to go into the years of conflict in my head surrounding this time, and my story is different from yours. I look forward to New Years Day, that’s when I have my soul back. I wish I was as together as you seem to be, I am still stuck between wanting to please and wishing desperately there was an alternative to playing along. Any space in your darkroom ?Yours in Grinchly solidarity, xx Joanna
I am not sure if I am that ‘together’ I am so far away from my own family that I just toddle along to Johns christmas with his Mother and thankfully they are very low key.. so my disconnection is not frowned upon. I do love to give a present to The Matriarch. I think your darkroom is your kitchen but how to shut the door! Well you are not alone in this feeling, that is good to know. c
A beautifully written honest post C. We are usually with family over Christmas but it is quite a tug of war of who to spend the day with – quite a stressful time all around.
🙂 Mandy
This is something that i do not have at least, the stress of whom to spend the day with, however i am sure that you will work things out beautifully.. c
Being alone IS being free! And yet Christmas is my favorite time of year. I have fond memories, and isn’t it odd how these memories continue to dog us far into our dotage?
Love your photos, as ALWAYS. Great thoughts.
Thank you Bela, and I love the people that love christmas, it must be glorious when you really get into it! c
P and I are spending Christmas alone this year. Eldest is living half way around the world with wife and two babies, youngest son is heading with girlfriend to spend holidays in Columbia with her parents up in the mountains on a coffee plantation. So it’s just the old guy and me. Alone. Like it used to be. And sorry, Celi, but I feel miserable as a wet sock at the thought of it.
I’d better get some damned good presents this year to compensate. 😉
Oh you poor wet sock you. What a perfect expression. I know how sad it is to be away from your kids, well I also hope you get some damn good pressies! I shall put a word in.! c
It’s all so personal and bloody brilliantly written that any comment from me would be worthless. Being able to be content in one’s own company, yet loving sharing life with others is a real asset which only a few truly possess. Many have to endure it but few can love it. I’m with you even though it is not my lot..
By the way, the dough rising shots are beautifully seen.
I made that bread with wine yeast which was an experiment .. and the loaves rose so beautifully! c
Cecilia that is heartrending! Ritchey and I were alone one Christmas Day – it was very different – but at least we had each other!
Sometimes it is nice just to be together, without the mayhem! I bet you cooked something beautiful.. c
Hi, Cecilia. As always, a wonderfully written post with lovely photos threading throughout. I am a metaphorical sort, so in some ways I was connecting the rising of the bread with the rising anticipation many, especially children, feel for the coming season, though that take really doesn’t really fit your story. Though you were not sad on your Christmas Days of old and achieved a sort of zen-like contentment, your description of your day alone, if I am honest, made me a little sad. But at the same time I admire your strong sense of being content with enjoying the day with yourself, a character quality I could use more of.
While I do enjoy Christmas traditions (even as I feel losses more keenly amidst them), I do acknowledge that this country’s sense of Christmas especially is all out of whack, and that the expectations we load on the day, both personally and corporately, can never be achieved, which leads to that post-Christmas sense of emptiness. And also, for many, it is indeed a sad, sad day, and they do not manage as well as you to be alone with themselves. And with the whatever other feelings I experience at Christmas, I am very cognizant of the fact that it is hard for many..
Not having had a wife or children myself, I have not had to sort out exactly which threads of Christmas traditions to pick up from the past and weave into a new family context, though I hope I would temper and undergird all of the more flashy ones with my own sense of the religious import of the holiday.
Finally, why the title “The Christmas Mist”? Is it a pun, a commentary? Thanks, as always for writing, taking photos, blogging.
The Christmas mist is my rising stillness as Christmas day approaches. If you have ever seen low mist come in and gather up over the water and even out here, over the plains, you will know what I mean. Impossible to photograph by the way. The rising bread reminded me of it. It was while I was taking the shots of the bread rising that I first felt that stir of the Christmas mist.
So, in fact, your take on the bread rising was quite correct.
Love, loved your comment.. Thank you Neil. c
I can’t tell you how much I love and appreciate this post. I think there are many people who share your feelings. Sometimes, even when we are celebrating with everyone, we are still “alone” or still searching for that moment of aloneness to make it all seem more peaceful and calm and meaningful than it somehow ended up being. Thanks you for sharing.
And thank you for commenting, it was a difficult piece to write without sounding whiney. Christmas Day is a wonderful day for many people and yes a moment alone to reflect on why is pretty awesome too.. c
I think each to his or her own. I’ve had big parties and some times been on may own. Personally it’s the cooking at Christmas which I enjoy, so even on my own, I’ll still cook something special.
I’ve been invited to a friend’s house this year, but expect I’ll be helping in the kitchen…
I hope you have a very merry Christmas Celia 😉
Awesome that you can get a mixture, that really is the best idea. Do you end up in the kitchen at parties too? I do as well ! c
Always – I have to be near the stove!
What a sweet post. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you for not liking Christmas. Really the main thing Katherine and I like is spending time together, OKand the gifts and food are nice.
I bet you are going to start sharing some of that lovely food soon too. Are we going to have a new christmas drink? c
Speechless.