Christmas

It's almost Christmas.  I love Christmas, I'm just a big kid.  I wear a Santa Claus hat, I sing all the carols, one after the other, I make mince pies and I get Christmas crackers imported from the UK because here in Italy they don't exist (like the Sahara without the sand).

As a child I was totally zen-like, completely at one with my shiny paper, glue, scissors and glitter as I confected "Christmas decorations" my mother gamely distributed about the house (I believe she still has a pipecleaner and Kleenex fairy I made thirty-two years ago).  I was Lucy in Narnia when she steps out of the wardrobe.

Thanks to the dreadful Scottish weather and the poor road conditions I've had bad Christmases.  The one where my sister's boyfriend hit a lorry that pulled out, and didn't make it.  The one where my mum's friend skidded and didn't make it (the kids were OK).  The one where my father's business partner's daughter hit a lorry, and didn't make it.

But I've never felt so confused as to how I should feel as this Christmas.  In an hour I'm going to a funeral.  My friend Nadia is burying her eldest son.  A lorry stopped suddenly, he hit it, and didn't make it.  She says her life is finished.  The air around here is so thick with pain it's hard to breathe.

My friend S went Christmas shopping a week ago.  She bought some stuff for herself along with loads of presents for her two small kids and her beloved husband.  She bought hats and false eyelashes because she's about to face eight months of chemio and radiotherapy.

A friend did me the biggest favour I can imagine from a friend: I didn't feel over the moon, I really got up there and looped the loop, for me and for this friend, the world is a better place for having certain people in it.  Thanks to this person I have never felt so deeply grateful for being born.  I have realised the charmed, blessed and perfect life I have.  I see the problems for what they are: nothing, just nothing.  I've never felt so grateful in my life.  This is my perfect Christmas present, and like all the best things in life, you just can't giftwrap it.

Years ago a good friend sent me an old African tale.  The last line is: just being alive is a triumph.  It's true, as long as you're a person like me who lives in a perfect charmed world, a life in a little plastic shaker where you make it snow whenever you want.  Unless someone drops your world and it gets broken.