The light and the dark
On sequins and solstice and struggling with Christmas
I'm in Westfield in Stratford in search of an outfit for my friend Frances’s 40th birthday party – ‘dress code: London boozer’ - and find myself completely entranced by all the sparkly clothes in the shops. In M&S I see a silver sequined blazer with gorgeous wide-legged trousers to match and I gasp: I want them both so badly and imagine turning up at the party in this spectacular outfit, a kind of glam rock pearly queen - but the jacket alone costs £75 and they haven’t got the trousers in my size, so it isn’t to be. I go in and out of other shops, trying on various iterations of this glittering partywear as I go and am surprised at how into it I am. I struggle with this time of year – with the coercive Christmassiness of the music and food and advertising and social events, not to mention the expense – but I realise that I absolutely love all these sequins! I don’t end up buying any of them but I am so glad that they are there.
A few weeks ago I talk to my friend Jo about my difficult relationship with Christmas. Like me she lives alone and has developed a good set of seasonal rituals specific to herself and her tastes – particular films, drinks and foods– to get into the festive spirit, and she suggests that I do something similar. I haven’t always felt like this about Christmas, in fact, I used to absolutely love it. I don’t want to go into the reasons this changed– and besides, I don’t entirely understand them myself – but I will say that it is definitely related to the end of a long-term romantic relationship and the corresponding loss of a home. I've had relationships since then but none of them as serious or settled or domesticated as that one; this, I should say, has been mostly by choice, but my changed relationship to Christmas is somehow a part of that story and the winter holidays still feel slightly tinged with the sadness of endings and loss.
I also struggle to untangle Christmas from the insane amounts of heteronormative propaganda shoved in our faces at this time of year. The ubiquitous advertisers’ image of the harmonious nuclear family sitting around a table full of Christmas bounty becomes more of a fantasy every year. This is increasingly not what people’s home lives look like, if indeed it ever was; we know that increasing numbers of people are struggling to provide themselves and their households with basic daily meals, let alone an enormous Christmas feast. We also know that loneliness at Christmas is a huge problem, and that, either through necessity or choice, people are increasingly organising their families and households in ways that do not resemble these strange supposedly ideal versions. Nevertheless, Jo’s idea is good, I think: it would be nice to find a way to properly connect with this time of year again. It can be strange and isolating to feel so outside of it and collective celebration is a good thing if you can separate it from all the bullshit.
