This is the third Christmas without ma. I still find it hard to believe some days.

I thought the first Christmas would be the worst but I kept myself busy and tried not to think too much.

I spent a lot of time with the kids and grandkids, and did my shopping online so I wouldn’t have to listen to Christmas songs in Tesco. I got through it ok but fecked off on a mini break with himself after I sobbed through Aul Lang Syne.

Last year was worse. I thought I was over it but one day when I was baking, I picked up the phone to call her to ask what she put into her mincemeat if she had no suet. I was in a heap on the white wine listening to Christmas F. M. when Jimmy got in from work. I bought mince pies in Lidl the next day, and only listened to my Tina Turner and George Michael C.D.s after that.

This year, I’m getting more angsty. Christmas is everywhere since October, and there doesn’t seem to be any escape. Everyone I talk to has their shopping done since September, and if I see one more programme, telling me how to have the perfect Christmas, how to cook the perfect turkey and the perfect roast potatoes and the perfect stuffing, I’ll go doolally.

I just wish it was all over. With ma gone and Kylie in Australia this year, I’m dreading it more than ever. My perfect Christmas’s are in the past, with ma and da and all the gang sitting around the table with paper hats fighting over the last cracker and who was going to do the washing up, and with Jimmy and all the kids sneaking downstairs to see if Santa came, even though we’d only had two hours sleep after assembling a dolls house, two bicycles and a train set … and feckin’ Santa getting all the glory. Will there ever be another perfect Christmas? Is there such a thing?

Anyway, after a lot of Grinch like wallowing,I’ve decided to power through; Shopping in actual shops, baking mince pies;( I found ma’s recipe on a piece of paper in one of her old cook books… pies may taste a bit salty ) and even listening to Christmas F.M. until I told Alexa to ‘turn that fucking channel off’ after hearing ‘I want a hippopotamus for Christmas’ three times in one morning. I hate that bloody song but ma always thought it was funny. I’d swear she’s trying to tell me something. Probably what she told me every year ‘What are you fussing about? sure it’s only one day, and a glorified Sunday dinner’.

It’s not the dinner I’m getting angsty about. It’s the empty chairs at the table that I can’t face.