For many, Christmas is a painful reminder of things lost ... or still missing

I won’t see my family this Christmas. I’ll be on the tail end of my last work trip for the year that will bring me back to Australia on Boxing Day night. But I won’t be alone.

Christmas Day is one that stirs things up – but not always good things. Picture: istock

I heard Dad come in through the front door. I looked up to see him walking down the hallway wearing a pair of shorts and no T-shirt. I can’t remember but I suspect he was also barefoot.

Semi-formal dress for Bruno. He wasn’t alone, though. Behind him was a man who was about the same age; thankfully he was dressed and shod. He had whitish hair, glasses, a kind face. He smiled at me, a sheepish kind of smile. I had absolutely no idea who this man was and neither did my mum. It was Christmas Day, early 2000s.

This is Pete, Dad proclaimed with glee (obviously Pete isn’t his real name). He was at the pool and he had nowhere to go so I told him to come have lunch with us.

There’s a lot about that day I don’t remember (my brother is similarly hazy about it), like how long it took for Pete to relax in our somewhat unorthodox approach to Christmas. I can’t remember how long it took my ever-patient mother to get over the shock.

Me? I defaulted to my favourite coping mechanism for awkward moments. Talk and then for the love of god just keep on talking. When all else fails, crack a gag and hope for the best.

For context, my dad was pathological in his approach to exercise. He never missed a day until he had his leg amputated several years later and even then he adapted from running and cycling to using a rowing machine. For years he would kick off Christmas Day with his mate Mick. They’d get up at the crack of dawn and race each other around Reabold Hill in Perth wearing matching singlets. One read: I’m King of the Hill. The other: I used to be King of the Hill.

So, the fact Dad had taken himself off to Beatty Park for a swim and a sauna on Christmas morning was standard behaviour. The fact he had met a stranger with nowhere to go and invited him home? That was a first but, as it happens, it wasn’t the last time. It was the first of many.

Pete ended up coming back for Christmas the following year. And for more than a few years after that. When I was talking to Mum about him this week, she unearthed a book he’d given her to say thankyou after that first year he was dragged from the pool to our home and into our loud, chaotic, rambunctious, highly opinionated family lunch. Pete also joined us at my zia’s house one year, as have many others through the years.

The data doesn’t lie – Australians are lonelier than ever. Picture: istock

My father, for his myriad flaws, was a soft-hearted soul and it never would have occurred to him to leave someone alone on Christmas. Thinking about that this week, I realised Pete was the first of many to be welcomed into the bosom of what I like to call A Very Tognini Christmas.

For decades since Pete joined us our family has opened our homes and our tables, at my mum’s or my zia’s, every Christmas and Easter. Last year 17 people crammed around the Christmas table at my mum’s, only half of whom were family. The rest? Friends, a couple of neighbours, Christmas orphans.

Like I was at Christmas 2022. It was the end of my first year living in Sydney. I was alone, homesick, and had nobody to care for Buster, who by then was a full-blown geriatric with a regimen of doggo meds to match. Add to that the flights back to Perth were drug-money expensive.

So here I was. I had never in my (then) 48 years spent a Christmas away from my family. I keenly felt the separation, was lonely and too embarrassed to admit it.

Enter some dear friends of mine (they know who they are). Come spend Christmas with us, they said. It will be a bit loud and possibly over the top, there may be some blues and definitely some mildly inappropriate language, but hey, come join the fun!

I felt as if I had been in training for that Christmas Day all my life.

That year, it was me who walked in sheepishly, tender-hearted and grateful, to be welcomed with affectionate hugs and wide smiles. It was me who took a little while to relax into someone else’s beautiful chaos. As it happens it was me who expressed an opinion that inadvertently started a conversational brawl, before later falling down a small set of stairs while trying to Facetime my niece. I had been so excited to see her face on the screen I missed a step, went arse over kettle and face first on to the floorboards. Ahh, the sweetness of making Christmas memories.

I will never forget that day. Not just because when I stacked it, I gave the entire extended family a view of my behind; not because the damage I did to my right knee took six months to heal. I will never forget the kindness shown to me by people who didn’t need to. Because my mate’s sister, whom I had met only once before, said: absolutely, there’s room for one more at our table.

Christmas Day is one that stirs things up, not always good things. There’s a heavy weight of expectation. Of curated lunches and effortless entertaining. And there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s your experience. I have had a few of those and they are lovely if not the exception. But it’s about what lies beneath, on Christmas Day and beyond.

The data doesn’t lie, Australians are lonelier than ever. We are more digitally connected and more physically apart, and I don’t know about you but feeling lonely or isolated isn’t a cool topic of discussion. Nobody wants to say, hey, I’m being crushed by the weight of situational loneliness, can we talk about it? No, we smile through gritted teeth. We play pretend, hide the pain. I have felt those things, lived them, especially in recent years, despite having the best friends a woman could hope for. I hesitated to be this transparent here because I feel sort of diminished in admitting to not being bulletproof. Am I a lesser woman because of those moments of vulnerability?

I love Christmas, I am a festive whirlwind. While it can be beautiful, chaotic, joyous and full, I know that for many it is concurrently a painful reminder of things lost or still missing.

Me? I won’t see my family this Christmas. I’ll be on the tail end of my last work trip for the year that will bring me back to Australia on Boxing Day night. But I won’t be alone. So, I hope if you’re blessed with a Christmas table of your own you’ll be mindful of offering a seat to someone who may not be brave enough to ask for it.