Home for Christmas

Christmas 2024

Dearest Victor,

I hope you know that even if you’d left me, even if you took to the skies for 17,000 kilometres and 22 hours to spread your wings away from the nest we’ve built, there’s nowhere I’d rather spend Christmas but home with you.

This morning, my fingers brushed the supermarket tinsel draped around the banister and yet, there was no tickle for all I could sense was the weight of the atmosphere pummelling my exhausted lungs. My bunny slipper-donning feet dragged across the wood floor to fetch myself just another bowl of Weet-Bix and berries when I’d normally be twirling on my red trainers whilst blasting carols from my laptop speakers. Gleeful children’s screams pierced through the air as I walked along the pristine white sands of Manly, yet I didn’t once take off my jeans or my Frosty-themed t-shirt to reveal my swimming costume and dive into a turquoise ocean.

Meanwhile, I just know that you’re donning your emerald jumper with Rudolph on it, your piercing jade eyes glistening more than freshly fallen snow. Your hearty laugh resonates around a long ash dining table in some swanky Notting Hill townhouse, the plates of turkey and pudding bowing before the delectability of your cinnamon syrup voice. You open silky gold-wrapped presents from under an imposing pine and surrounded by hearth gazes.

I just know too that you’re holding her hand, that her long, mahogany waves tumble across your shoulder as she rests her head on it, that you’re blissfully, undeniably with her. 

Alba. Gorgeous, intelligent Alba. Alba of the high cheekbones and the wide half-moon smiles. Alba who strides across the pavements of ol’ London Town as if she stepped off some fashion week runway. Alba who bawls over Neruda sonnets, West End shows, the sapphire necklace you gave her that matches her irises, and the children at the cancer ward she’s been volunteering in for the past seven years. 

No matter what I do, I’ll never measure up to her, won’t I? If the world were a Christmas feast, you’d would always view Alba as that sweet, cloud-like trifle everyone tries to get a portion of whilst I’m the boiled-to-death tray of Brussels sprouts. I get it; that’s why you disappeared without nary a letter to explain why you were breaking up with me and boarded a plane to the other side of the world. It would be nothing short of a miracle wished on Santa’s list for you to remember even a smidge of what we shared.

Can you try to, though, Victor? Can you tell me that the years I was by your side make the gems you once looked at me with glitter like starlight, even just a tad. Please let me know. Don’t let this castaway feeling linger and bring me home.

Can you try to recall the day we met at your mate Leo’s holiday party? I was sitting on a lounge chair by his pool, just minding my game when you walked in. It was as if choirs of angels ushered you in your white button-down shirt, creamy linen trousers, and elfin grin. Instantly, a million crackers popped in my head, spurring me to get up, traverse the room on jelly legs, and wave hello. Angels had nothing on the way you glowed as you beamed at me. Unfortunately, we only had thirty measly minutes, half an hour of conversation that shone brighter than any glass bauble to me. It was all it took, though, for my entire heart to be lit up with the power of you.

Can you try to recall the day you and I had the entire beach to ourselves four Christmases ago? Even in the sudden silence of the bedroom that we long ago shared, I can still clearly hear that deep sigh emitting from the innermost recesses of your lungs, could still clearly see those light green eyes streaked with scarlet when I woke you up at 4:30 a.m. and demanded you to pack a change of clothes. Oh, how you shuffled, as if you were a leaden statue, around the house, grabbing a quick bite of eggs and baked beans and braving a scalding shower. All of that pouty preparation was worth it, though, when you saw the massive shoreline devoid of its usual crowd. Just so you know, your soft giggle and that intoxicating smooch before you leapt in the ocean still play in my mind endlessly, a constant magical carol.  

Can you try to recall the day we announced our engagement over steaks seared on the barbecue during the Yuletide season last year? It had only been a week since you’d slipped a cushion-cut diamond on my finger as an early present. I don’t know what it was; perhaps, it was the white Moscato bubbling away in our veins. Either way, like the ten lords a-leaping in that song, you stood at attention, brushed those poppy petal lips on mine and spoke of your intentions to be my husband. Of course, the news was met with rapturous ‘Congratulations’ and tight embraces. As the night wore on, your seafoam gaze never left me, that shy smile was plastered on your handsome visage as I flitted around our families gathered for a grill out. Tell you what? Just noticing that brought all the joy to my world.

Most of all, can you try to recall the day you fled from my life and out the door like a frigid December gust early this year? How was I to know that as you reclined on that poolside longer, as I sipped gin and tonics with you by the coastline, as the smoke from the meat searing and the wine in our system fizzed, you’d always searched for the Star of Bethlehem leading to the midnight skies of Alba’s regard. One day, you just left me, took away the very shelter my heart was ensconced in. Now, I’m stuck wandering around streets, hoping for even a manger to save me from the winter frost of your absence.

I know now it’s always been Alba you wanted to sit by the fireplace with, to decorate the tree with gold and red ornaments, as well as giggles. Is it wrong for me to hope I’d be gifted your return into my arms? Am I going into the naughty list if I did everything in my power to remind you of that the most wonderful times of my year is with you? Is it wrong for me to yearn to be by your side, to be home for Christmas and the rest of our lives? Let me know, Victor.

Having a blue Christmas without you,

Sandra

***

Christmas 2024

Dear Dr. Kingsley,

Surprise! Happy Christmas! I guess we just wanted to give you one last card before you move to the other side of the world, something to remember by ‘your favourite medical team’. 

We’re never going to stop harping on this, but we couldn’t be more elated for you and Dr. Sexton-Cooper. Come on now. We all witnessed how your secret glances at each other at the hospital holiday party six years ago blossomed into the two of you exchanging vows before a Winter Wonderland-themed altar. Even then, it was obvious that you two were just besotted with each other. We can’t even call it a Christmas miracle because it was just so meant to be. Everyone (well, perhaps, save for that patient's mum who kept trying to ask you out on a date even if we told her you had a girlfriend. Thank goodness, no one else is like that, insisting to squeeze into your world when you have a clear soulmate!) would agree.

By the way, remember Sandra de Jaager? Well, unfortunately, she’s back and confined at the ward. Something about trying to board a British Airways flight when she had no ticket and punching two airport security guards when they wouldn’t let her in. It’s really tragic. I know you and the rest of the team, we worked very hard to make sure she’s okay and could go home (which, of course, she was always holed up in). We honestly were debating whether or not to tell you and spoil your newlywed bliss in a new city, but we know how much you care about your patients. We thought you should know.

Anyway, have the most wonderful (English) Christmas, Dr. Kingsley! Worry not. We’ll always hold down the fort here in Sydney even if we’ll miss you and your new wife. 

Love,

The Nursing Staff of Northern Beaches Hospital - Psychiatry Ward

P.S.: So, we may have a betting pool running here about when you and Dr. Sexton-Cooper will start a family. Hahahaha! Sorry! Most of us said in two years (and that your first child will have her sapphire blue eyes).