There is nothing more unsettling
than a teenage Christmas.
The coming of age
when adults find their inner child again
and you have to try and get rid of yours.
11 is fine.
Part of you still believes Santa put the presents under tree.
12 is also okay,
just a little less pixie dust stirs in the stomach on Christmas Eve.
13, 14 and 15 are tricky.
You don't want to look babyish by getting too excited,
so you shrug it off and ask 'Santa' for a mobile phone,
a laptop,
a TV,
until by 15
you ask for the most 'grown up' present of all.
"I just want money."
The words burn your lips and tongue like acid,
a yearning for the sensation of a gift you can unwrap
tugging in your rib cage.
You can't buy that.
16, 17 and 18 are Christmases tinged with nostalgia.
Little ghosts of the younger you run down the stairs on Christmas morning,
feet clad in slippers and Power Rangers pjyamas askew,
whilst you follow in procession,
almost a funeral.
It's not that you don't like Christmas.
It's not that you don't love your family.
It's not that you don't feel a fire light in your belly when you bite into a mince pie,
it's not that the battered Christmas videos your family replay each year don't still make you smile,
it's not even that you've gotten too old for it all.
Have you?
Slippers and tiny fists batter against advent calender doors,
begging you to open them.
When you're 19 you do.
You let them out and let them rush to rip open their presents under the tree.
You let them eat their selection box first before dinner.
You let them cry when the Snowman melts
and you let them laugh and not mock heave when your father chases your mother with mistletoe.
You let the ghosts become holograms you can play in your mind like a projector and slides,
no longer a need to leave holly by their graves
but a chance to remember and smile.
You let them be happy.