How to ruin Christmas

Actor turned vicar Natalie Garrett, recounts the perils of being a Christmas Pro.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

A nativity seen with wooden figures and hay, amidst which a cat sits in the manger.

Nativity cat, Warsaw, 2012.

Kacper Pempel.

So, during the years of my acting career, I always avoided Panto (oh yes I did). Not because I don’t like Panto, I love a good Panto. But because I didn’t want to work over Christmas. How God will have chortled at that great irony, knowing as he did that as of 2005 (the year I got ordained), I would be working every Christmas for the rest of time.

Christmas is different now. Not only am I ordained, I’m married to a vicar. I’m completely immersed in professional Christmas. And Christmas is a bit different when you’ve turned pro. I won’t go so far as to say that being ordained has ruined Christmas, but it’s certainly changed it. But so has (supposedly) being a grown up.

My “Proper Christmas” will always be the Christmas that I grew up with (is that just me?). I had traditional preparing-for-Christmas jobs that I did every year on Christmas Eve eve: polishing the special cutlery we only used once a year, making the brandy butter (which is a bit odd now I think about it, being that heavily involved with brandy from the age of six) and decorating The Tree. And having the annual argument with my sister about whose turn it was to take the present to our neighbours across the road. And eating a lot of satsumas. And chocolate. And seeing my cousins and playing Trivial Pursuit. All of which looks very rosy seen through the eyes of a child. Christmas is different when you’re ordained and you have to work, but it’s also very different when you’re the grown up.

I used to think my mother made a ridiculous amount of fuss about Christmas. I am now that same mother. I think it’s Michael McIntyre who does a whole routine about women starting to write their Christmas To Do lists in October and endlessly shrieking, “there’s so much to do!” That’s me folks. Christmas as a grown up – or at least for this grown up – feels like there’s so much to do!

I always imagine (unhelpfully fantasize) that Other People’s families are living the Christmas dream – the relaxed, cosy evenings drinking hot chocolate or eggnog in front of a roaring fire; laughing and playing wholesome games happily and peacefully with their angelic children, wearing matching Christmas jumpers. In the cold light of day, I realise that, actually, most people find Christmas stressful for a million different reasons. It’s not all twinkly and bright.

For many people, Christmas means seeing all the family that they avoid during the rest of the year. It means spending money they can ill-afford on presents that may not be wanted. Christmas means missing the people who aren’t with us anymore. It means endless advertising campaigns suggesting that you aren’t living the perfect life – but that if you buy a new sofa, you’ll salvage the ruins of your life just in time for a perfect, twinkly Christmas.

And so the life of the mythical twinkly, “magical” Christmas lives on. With little or no reference to its origin story.

I was the chaplain at a Church of England secondary comprehensive school for seven years. In my first term, putting together the carol service, I asked a class chapel rep if she would do one of the Bible readings. “Oh, is Christmas in the Bible?” Huh. Another conversation I had went along the lines of, “Miss, I don’t believe in Jesus and all that religious stuff. But I believe in the spirit of Christmas.” Huh.

There’s a song in the staged musical version of the film Nativity, which is to all intents and purposes a Christmas prayer. But instead of the prayer being directed at God, it is directed at Father Christmas;

Dear Father Christmas, make our wish come true

Dear Father Christmas send your spirit through

There are Children in the world who need you way more than we do

But Father Christmas, we still believe in you

Dear Father Christmas make our wish come true

Which brings me to a difficult moment in my Christmassy life. I have a parenting policy that demands that I tell my children the truth. Whatever the question, if I know the answer, I will give it to them honestly. So, when my children were around the ages of four and six, in the middle of Sainsbury’s, with both children piled into the trolley, in mid-November, surrounded by early Christmas-abilia, one of my children asked me, “Mummy, does Father Christmas really exist?”. (SPOILER ALERT!!). I had to give an honest answer. If the question had been less straight, if there had been any wriggle room at all, I would have fudged it. But a straight question deserved a straight answer. Which, wide-eyed, they went and shared with their friends. A crowd of angry parents from their Primary school came to church to complain that the Vicar’s children had ruined Christmas.

But my point was that if I were to tell my children that I believe Father Christmas exists and that he grants Christmas wishes, were they ever to find out that I had lied (ahem), how would they trust me when I say that I believe Jesus does exist and that he does answer prayers? The challenge has lived with me ever since: how to keep Christmas rooted in Christ without ruining the Christmas magic.

Well, my saving grace is that I’m still a sucker for a bit of Christmas schmaltz. The theologically sensitive part of me absolutely abhors Away in a Manger (“no crying he makes”? Really? He was a new-born baby, of course he cried!!) and Little Donkey (in the Bible accounts there is absolutely no mention of donkeys at all. Not a single one – not on the road, not in the stable. No cows, no donkeys.) But light some candles, get the children singing and I have tears pouring down my face with the best of them, loving every moment.

But that still doesn’t mean that the essence of Christmas is the twinkly magic. Because, of course, the first Christmas was neither twinkly nor magic. Nor did it involve a perfectly curated tablescape (which I also love at Christmas). It didn’t involve any the stereotypical Christmassy things that we all get stressed about and love in equal measure. The first Christmas was messy and difficult. But it was also the most real, most genuinely joyous event in human history. Apart from Easter. Don’t get me started on chocolate bunnies….

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Death & life

Psychology

9 September 2024

3 min read

A survivor shares how we can help prevent suicide

Allowing people to voice their despair makes space for hope to grow.

Rachael Newham

Rachael is an author and theology of mental health specialist.

yard signs read: Don't give up. You are not alone. You matter.

Yard signs, Salem, Oregon.

Dan Meyers on Unsplash.

Were there signs I missed?

Why couldn’t they stay for me?

Could I have done something?

These and a million other questions fill the minds of those who lose a loved one to suicide - and there are no easy answers.

Suicide evokes a particular loss which can torment those left behind with grief and guilt. With suicide rates reaching a twenty-five-year high, too many people are living with these unanswerable questions.

At the heart of many of these questions is the stigma which still surrounds suicide; it was only eighty years ago that suicide was still a crime and much of the condemnatory thinking remains.

People still believe that suicide is somehow selfish, that it’s the reserve of only those most severely affected by mental illness or that nothing can stop someone from taking their own life if they’re considering it.

The truth is far more complex and, thankfully, far more hopeful because whilst suicide is complex - it can be prevented.

A heartbreaking 1 in 15 people will attempt to take their own life - and most will survive, with trauma, yes but also with the opportunity to build a life that they can bear.

Suicide prevention involves the whole of society. From government, charities, families and friends, it has to begin with shattering the myths that perpetuate the stigma. And, we need to begin by changing the language we use: Suicide is not a crime that is committed so people don’t commit suicide, they die by suicide and by moving away from the language of committing we can begin to accept that suicide is no-one’s fault - it’s a tragedy.

Suicide is not selfish; for many people in the depths of suicidality, they believe that they are relieving their loved ones from a burden, and it can affect anyone - including those with no history of mental ill-health.

Many have believed in the past that once someone has decided to take their own life, there is nothing that can be done to stop them, but suicide is preventable with openness and honesty.

A heartbreaking 1 in 15 people will attempt to take their own life - and most will survive, with trauma, yes but also with the opportunity to build a life that they can bear, but they need help to do so.

We each have a role by reaching out with kindness and creating sanctuaries.

As a teenager, I twice attempted to take my own life and I’ve lived with thoughts of suicide for almost twenty years, but I am still here - in large part due to the kindness of others as they held hope for me when I could not manage it alone.

Perhaps strangely, the place I wanted to be the most in the wake of my attempt was church; it was the place I felt the safest and I wanted to be in a place where I could cry and let out my conflicted and confused feelings to God because I felt there was no-one that could understand what I was going through. I remembered the character of Elijah in the Bible who begged God for death and was met with God encouraging rest, nourishment and the opportunity to pour his heart out. It was what he needed in his darkest hour, and it was what I needed in mine.

We cannot take on the role of mental health professionals - and neither should we - but we can be prepared to hear the hardest words and to listen to someone’s thoughts of suicide because research shows us that allowing people to give voice to their despair makes space for hope to grow.

When people are struggling with thoughts of suicide or trying to navigate the aftermath of a suicide attempt, we each have a role by reaching out with kindness and creating sanctuaries; safe spaces for those who are struggling to express their despair and receive compassion. It might look like dropping around a meal, listening to them pour their heart out, advocating for them with mental health professionals or offering childcare or running errands.

We can all play our part in changing the culture around suicide with language, care and holding hope for those who feel that all hope is lost.