I blame Dickens

Shawn and Cro have got me thinking about childhood Christmases - again.

I gave up on Christmas shortly after leaving the family home and shortly after our parents sold the home and shortly after my brother stole all the money from the sale. Once you give up on Christmas, it is difficult to go back. It is nothing to do with growing up, even though the next generation of children are the excuse for trying.

As a child, late on Christmas night I would go out into the darkness in the full knowledge that no harm could possibly come to me on this night of all nights. I was acutely aware that there was more chance of my being murdered by my own family members indoors.

Auntie Iris (my father's sister) and Uncle Alf would arrive from Brighton on Christmas Eve with my lesbian cousin, and alcohol would be drunk as Alf told stories about WW2 and his part in Hitler's downfall. For the rest of the year, the booze stayed in the cupboard.

On Christmas day, the long wait for the opening of the presents would begin, and this would stretch well past the supper of cold turkey and bubble and squeak. Every year a small, bad-taste present would be returned from one family to the other, who took it in turns to give it back.

This gift would be more and more elaborately disguised each year, so as to try and fox the receiver from guessing that this was it. Each year the parcel would be larger than the last, and inside would be an ever diminishing series of boxes to be unwrapped until the smallest of them all containing the actual object. I cannot remember what it was, but I do remember that nobody wanted it. This was a 'tradition'.

As a ten-year old, it was my job to mix and serve drinks for all the grown-ups. I was allowed a couple of port and lemonades. With my back turned to the adults, only I knew how much port went into the lemonade. This was the beginning of my long career as a part-time alcoholic.

Still, I was not so seriously alcoholic as my other male, gay cousin, who eventually died as a direct result of drinking, but not before his parent's life savings had also been stolen from him by his lodger.

Like I say, life's events make going back to childhood Christmases impossible, but we still try.