Posted by on December 26, 2019 5:00 am
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Categories: µ Newsjones

The death of my father last year was surreal and shocking. But it has also left me with a profound gratitude for the peace this time of year offers

This year, I have slipped further into Christmas mania than ever. I have always been the person who wraps their gifts in October and spends the entirety of Christmas Day in homemade reindeer ears, but 2019 has been markedly more intense: I started looking at decorations in early November, organised a four-course potluck dinner with friends as soon as December had started, and spent hours comparing essentially identical fir trees online.

I have done all of this because I love Christmas, I really do, but also because I knew that I had to reclaim it. On Boxing Day last year, my dad died after what it would be an understatement to call a long illness – a brain tumour of impressive complexity, which developed over 20 years. Death can knock you off your feet at any time of year, but there was something particularly surreal about taking my brother out of the room where our father had just died, and turning on the TV to cut through the silence and the noise only to find Macaulay Culkin setting booby traps in Home Alone.

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