And then the dreaded words were spoken: “Let’s all go away for Christmas.”
We braced ourselves for the avalanche of opposition, particularly from the most formidable quarters: children and grandparents. Like most families we were riven by deaths, divorces, distance and Marmite. Christmas had become a crazy shuttling between familiar locations: picking people up, dropping others off, constantly eating. How many times in one day can you say with conviction to several different relatives, “Yes, your Christmas cake is the very best”? And constantly making amends, “I’m sorry, but we left all your presents at the last house we were in. Everything is such a rush …”
At first, perversely, I enjoyed spending part of Christmas Day on the M62, but the traffic increased every year and there was the horror of replacing forgotten gifts in motorway services: “We didn’t know what to get you, so …”
“Oh, how lovely! Screen wash.”
“We thought it’d go with the wiper blades we got you last year.”
However, the response to our “Christmas away” suggestion came as a shock. Instead of vitriol, we got total agreement and a wave of enthusiasm. It felt kind of blissful, like Christmas should be, but often isn’t. There were cries of “swimming pool!” and “Tuscany”, but we ignored them. I already knew where we were going.
Three years earlier, while walking on the Wales Coast Path, I’d passed a lonely old stone house hunkered down in gorse bushes at the top of a cliff. There wasn’t another dwelling within a mile, or a shop within five. It was large, but looked cosy too.
Further along the path on the Marloes peninsula, I clambered down a cliff to a beach that only existed at low tide, fully expecting to have the place to myself. But there was a solitary fisherman, casting for sea bass. We discussed angling. I asked where he was staying. He laughed, “There’s only one place – it’s up there. It’s a holiday cottage belonging to a friend’s parents. I don’t think they advertise – it’s far too remote for most people. No phone, and no wifi either.”
Now, three years later, I found myself trying to recall the name of that place. I couldn’t. I tried every kind of map. I walked, virtually on Google Earth, to within a mile, looking for signs. I rang the nearest garage and asked the owner. He had never heard of it. I tried the nearest shop and pub, then a mobile hairdresser and a fish-and-chip van that toured the area. Nothing. In the end – a brainwave – I worked out which farm owned the land next to it and rang them. They gave me a number.
The woman who answered seemed a bit surprised. “We only usually let it out to people we know, but since no one wants to go this Christmas I could make an exception.”
The excitement that year was palpable. Our family was spread across the planet, but the prospect of something different, an adventure, pulled them all in. Arrival was a little nerve-racking: if the absence of wifi can cause panic attacks, no phone signal starts mass hysteria. And I had failed to mention that someone was going to have to sleep on the settee. Then comes the real crisis. A child steps boldly forward and voices what everyone has been thinking: “Is there really nothing to do here?”
And you hear ancestral voices echoing down the decades and emerging from your own mouth. “There’s plenty to do: lovely walks – when the rain stops – and board games.”
I love the look on young faces when you first show them a 1,000-piece jigsaw. Veterans of smartphones, laptops and consoles, they are initially confused. They swipe the picture on the box and are astonished to find nothing happens. But choose your jigsaw wisely, start it off, then watch as they get drawn in. For Maddy (then eight), it was the picture of dog breeds that did the trick.
For the entire week a huge storm raged, sending balls of spume, like volcanic bombs, shooting up the cliffs and over the house. The dogs invented the game of chasing them; the humans soon joined in. The wind was so ferocious that grandparents had to be weighed down with Christmas pudding. In the kitchen the lack of a single recognisable host led not to friction, but cooperation. Deep-seated grudges against vile innovations like cranberry sauce, soya milk and rum butter were set aside. Maddy successfully introduced Yorkshire pudding to the Christmas dinner for the first time. New traditions were spawned in abundance, and remain in place until now.
On the day itself we swam in the cove, screaming at the cold, and watching seals pop up next to us. We were so far from a shop that anything forgotten remained forgotten – no one wanted to leave. A lot of time was spent huddled in the lee of rocks watching the sea, mesmerised by the movement, colour and power, then rushing inside to the log-burner for some teamwork on the jigsaw, or to start a board game – the battleground where healthy, loving families can be vile to each other without excessive bloodshed.
When that Christmas was over, we all declared it the best ever and the “not going away” spell was broken. We tried renting two adjacent cottages in Staithes. That seemed like a good idea, but I would advise caution. Fourteen people fitted neatly into two cottages, but not into any one room. The kitchens were both too small. Another cottage down the coast with a large kitchen-diner proved ideal, but the two-mile walk to the sea did not please everyone. You certainly need a place that has one room large enough to host a dinner, with a table big enough and sufficient chairs. Be nice to the owners. In our experience they do decorate the house, but a gentle reminder helps. Taking your own board games is wise, although the serendipitous discovery in the cupboard is always the best: that’s how we came across Dixit and Balderdash. A pub within walking distance is an asset. A pub with a quiz night is gold dust. Get the OS map and work out walks beforehand.
Christmas away as a group certainly works well, but that’s not the only method. Sometimes you should skedaddle and leave the rest to sort themselves out. Christmas alone in a mountain hut, or in places where no one else is celebrating, with people who have never seen tinsel or what used to be called the Queen’s Speech, is an experience worth having. Forget about turkey and try cornflakes, or curry. One year, staying in a remote African village, I received a parcel on Christmas Day, the first and only one to arrive in four months. Inside had been a Christmas pudding, but somewhere in the delivery chain, the parcel had ruptured and spilled its contents. All that was left was the aroma. That was the best sniff of Christmas I ever had.
