A Tradition of Guilt

Date: 12/22/2025

“I love Christmas!” Alice beams. She’s wearing a jumper so aggressively festive it should come with a warning label: may induce rage. A sequinned reindeer sprawled across her chest, its glassy eyes catching the light every time she moves. They glare at me — sharp, glittering, unblinking — like they’re trying to lure me in. Come on. Give in. Smile. Join us. I look away, but I can still feel them. Judging. Waiting. She’s in full-throttle Christmas mode — the kind that doesn’t come with an off switch. She’s been humming Christmas songs all morning. Not even full songs. Just looping choruses, over and over, burrowing into my skull. Bells. Cheer. Forced joy. It’s beginning to grind my gears into something fine and flammable. How can someone be this cheerful with the impending doom of Christmas hanging so close? Trust me to be partnered with a Christmas lover. She hasn’t stopped yabbering about it since dawn. Advent calendars. Candles that smell like pine and lies. The magic of it all. She says magic the way people say religion — like it explains everything and absolves everyone. She’s already got her Christmas planned like a carefully curated art installation. Handmade baubles. Personalised wrapping paper. Thoughtful colour palettes. Decorating with the precision of someone who genuinely enjoys it — and will absolutely enjoy taking it all down again too, labelling boxes, congratulating herself. At this point, I may as well just call her Kirsty Allsopp and have done with it. Who has time to make their own baubles, for Christ’s sake? If she wasn’t such an angel, I’d throw one at her head. Let it shatter. Let it prove something. I hate Christmas. Hate it. Christmas, for me, is just expensively wrapped guilt. I’ve left things last minute again. Always do. It’s tradition at this point. The annual panic. Rushing through shops that feel more like battlefields, dodging Christmas shoppers as they swarm the aisles. People fighting over turkeys in the meat section like it’s the last chopper out of Saigon. Bloody savages. Elbows out. Eyes wild. Wrapping presents is worse. I’m crap at it. It always looks like the present’s been interrogated rather than wrapped —blindfolded in paper, duct-taped into submission, and traumatised for life. But I do it anyway. Because not doing it feels worse. The kids haven’t helped this year. My son dropped the second part of his Christmas list on me yesterday. Yesterday. I thought we were done. I’d already mentally survived it. But no — Part Two. Another hundred quid’s worth of landfill. Including a Dwayne The Rock Johnson scatter cushion, his smug face staring back at me, muscles airbrushed into oblivion. Stitched beneath a famous quote of his — “Can you smell what the Rock is cocking?” Aggressively misspelt. Confidently wrong. Most likely made in China. I can’t bring myself to basket it. I have to draw the line somewhere. Dwayne can shove his cock somewhere festive and dark. Alice and I squeeze the last of the parcels into the van. You couldn’t fit another one in if you tried. It’s packed to the brim — a grotesque shrine to greed and overconsumption. Plastic joy. Cardboard regret. As I shove the final parcel into a free slot like some grim game of Tetris, I notice something oozing from one of them. A slow leak. Thick. Unnatural. It looks like battery acid. Bubbling. Toxic. I don’t know what entices me — curiosity, instinct, self-loathing — but I scoop some up and lick it. Sweet and bitter at the same time. Like nostalgia. Like regret. Not bad. Not great either. I scoop some more and slip it into my pocket. Obviously saving it for later. We set off on our round. Alice immediately puts the Christmas songs on. Not one. A playlist. Relentless. My soul checks out early, flying somewhere remote where Christmas doesn’t exist. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere honest. Just a few more days. Soon it’ll all be over. Shoved into a dark corner of the attic until next year, tangled lights and broken promises. The radio fades mid-chrous, and then the van is gone. I’m in the kitchen now. Ann and Alan have arrived — Mum’s friends. Ann is crying, folded in on herself, sobbing into her hands. She looks fragile. Cracked. Like someone who’s been holding things together for too long and finally let go. “Shall we go up to the office and have a chat?” I say. Alan shoots me a look. I know that look. Fear disguised as authority. A man terrified of losing his grip. I feel sorry for Ann. She spends her life orbiting this man-child, catering to him, shrinking herself so he can feel larger. But she loves him. He’s all she’s ever known. If only she could see her own worth. “I’ll make a cup of tea first,” I say. Nothing heals sadness like a warm brew. Or at least, nothing distracts it long enough to breathe. And then I’m back in the van. We’re almost done. It’s dark now — that early winter dark that feels personal. But I can almost taste home time. The relief. The end. “Have a merry Christmas!” Alice calls to the last customer. She turns to me, eyes bright. We share a look. A silent high five. Survival. “What’s this?” she asks, wriggling out of the back of the van. She holds up a parcel. Small. Perfect. Immaculately wrapped. “It’s for you,” she gushes. My name is written on the tag. My stomach tightens. I don’t want it. I don’t want to perform gratitude. I don’t want my face to betray me — because it always does. My face tells the truth even when I don’t want to. I take it anyway. The paper feels heavier than it should. Dense. Warm. Like it’s been held for a long time. I don’t want to open it. That’s how I know I have to. The paper tears too easily. No resistance. Inside the box is no gift I recognise — just a dark, viscous substance pooling at the bottom, soaking into the cardboard. The smell hits first. Sweet. Bitter. Familiar. The same smell as the parcel in the van. It moves. Not alive — just active. Like it’s breathing without lungs. And then I understand. It isn’t something I’ve been given. It’s something I’ve been carrying. Images surface, uninvited. My son’s list. The cushion I refused to buy. The smiles I fake. The looks I don’t quite hide. The way I wrap presents like I’m apologising with my hands. The way I count money instead of moments. I think of Ann. Ann crying into her hands. Ann staying because leaving feels heavier than staying. Ann pouring cups of tea over cracks that should have been shattered years ago. I see the loop now. Her life. My Christmas. The same cycle dressed up differently. Obligation mistaken for loyalty. Endurance mistaken for love. Guilt doing the heavy lifting while everyone else calls it tradition. I reach into my pocket. My fingers come out slick, coated in the same substance. I’ve been leaking it all day. All year. Longer than that. Guilt. It’s what keeps Ann where she is. It’s what keeps me here — smiling through clenched teeth, promising myself next year will be different. The box begins to soften. The bottom gives way. The guilt spills out, thick and unstoppable, dripping onto the van floor, spreading towards my feet. Alice is still smiling, still humming, oblivious. She doesn’t see it. No one ever does. I want to warn her. I want to warn myself. The radio starts another Christmas song. I stand there, ankle-deep now, realising with quiet horror that the worst part isn’t the weight of it — It’s knowing I’ll carry it again next year.