Illustration by Heidi Berton
First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
One of my favourite holiday traditions is getting together with my girlfriends for a glass or two of wine in January – when the tree has been dismantled, the general trauma of the holidays subsided – and commiserating about how little the menfolk did to contribute to any the Christmas festivities.
Allow me to introduce you to someone we like to call the Christmas Freeloader.
A common characteristic is the misguided notion that Christmas just magically happens. The presents for both families – including his mother – just appear and wrap themselves. Eight varieties of shortbread suddenly materialize – in adorable snowflake tins – and stow themselves away in the freezer. Christmas elves clean the house from top to bottom, making it smell like the perfect combination of pine forest and crushed candy canes. A decadent turkey dinner falls from the sky and lands on a perfectly decorated table – for which the only explanation can be that a Pottery Barn home makeover contest has been won.
The Christmas Freeloader tends to lie dormant all summer. They may masquerade as a helpful mower of lawns and taker out of garbage in the warmer months. They may even try to confuse us by putting oil in our car when it’s slipped our mind. Make no mistake. The Christmas Freeloader is just biding his time until Advent. He begins to rear his head when the first leaves begin to fall with some raking or absent-minded leaf blowing. Do not be fooled. By the time the Christmas parties and work functions begin filling up the calendar, the Christmas Freeloader is at full strength.
For example: Having secured a babysitter at twice the going rate in order to attend a potluck at his boss’s house, you are rushing out the door juggling a hostess gift, two bottles of nicer-than-normal wine and your contribution to the meal in your best ceramic dish – when he finally shows an interest in the preparations and asks, “What are we bringing?”
You suppress the urge to introduce him to his new “green bean almondine” hat and remind yourself that if it were left up to him, you’d be campaigning for your husband’s promotion with a six-pack of beer and a tub of spinach dip from the supermarket – sans French loaf. You take a deep, cleansing breath and proceed to the car. (Which you’re driving, because he wants to have a few cocktails.)
Habitually, the Christmas Freeloader maintains a state of denial that the holidays are not only coming, but being hosted in your home. He typically complains about the amount of work it is to host Christmas – even though he never does any of it.
He’ll pretend to dread the families coming over. He will undermine you at every turn by being hungover on the morning he promised he’d put the Christmas lights up. He will skulk around the house and get underfoot the day all of your friends are coming around for the Mega-Festive-Cookie-Swap-Wine-Swill-A-Palooza – feigning he knew nothing about it.
When Christmas Day finally arrives, and the “everyday” house has been polished, primped and transformed into the “fake” house that company gets to see – the arrival of 20 hungry relatives imminent – the Christmas Freeloader will choose that precise moment to take his shower, steaming up your pristine bathroom, fouling the new Christmas soaps and drying himself on the reindeer guest towels.
Perhaps the most infuriating thing about the Christmas Freeloader is that, after literally months of careful planning, shopping and recipe making – the doorbell finally rings and in rushes your hungry herd of visitors. You are a sweaty mess, alone in the kitchen, struggling with a hot greasy turkey twice your bodyweight, but the Christmas Freeloader will appear out of nowhere on the landing, breeze down the stairs looking relaxed and perfectly coifed just in time to receive your guests like he’s Lord of the Manor.
“Welcome!” he announces, his arms outstretched to his sides as he channels Mr. Rourke from Fantasy Island. “Welcome to our home. Please, allow me to take your coats!”
He beams, then looks at you with a desperate perma-grin, pleading with his eyes for you to telepathically tell him where the coats go because he’s never hung up his own jacket – let alone anyone else’s.
The Christmas Freeloader is not thrown for long though, as he pulls his next trick. "What can I offer everyone to drink?"
He swoops in and prances to the bar cart that’s mysteriously appeared and been fully stocked – probably by unicorns – and begins offering up all kinds of elixirs as if the 45 seconds it takes to mix a gin and tonic is even remotely comparable to the 10 hours it takes to make Christmas dinner for 20 people. But to him, he is “hosting” Christmas. Now, in full on eye-roll mode, you consider exposing him for the imposter he is. The temptation to blow this charade wide open is overpowering. And you may seriously go through with it – if it weren’t for the fact that you now have to deal with a no-ice situation. Because he forgot to pick it up. The one job he had.
At this point, you truly do have to laugh. While the emotional labour of Christmas still too often rests on women’s shoulders, the good news is that every mother, aunt and sister-in-law in the room knows it wasn’t you that forgot the ice. Because, we women would never.
Justine Clay lives in Calgary.