The
Christmas I'd rather forget
You can’t
escape Christmas – not even with a Caribbean holiday
Fay Schopen
Instead of
a festive getaway, I had a miserable time, losing
repeatedly at Scrabble – and ending up with pubic lice
Getaway: Exit
Tue 25 Dec
2018 08.30 GMT
Can you ever truly escape Christmas?
In 2007, I discovered that you cannot, no matter how hard you try. I was living
in New York, studying for a master’s degree. My boyfriend at the time, who
lived in London, was flying over, and a Christmas spent in my tiny studio
apartment did not appeal. Christmas in
New York is renowned for being a sparkling, magical time – but that winter I remember
freezing slush rather than picturesque snowfall; and
negotiating my way through slippery streets clutching a bottle of super-strength cockroach killer was
the closest I got to ice skating in Central Park.
Appeal: If
something appeals to you, you find it attractive or interesting.
Renowned: Notorious
Sparkling: Performing very well
Slush: Slush is snow that has begun to melt and is therefore very wet and
dirty.
If you describe a love
story as slush, you mean that you dislike it because it is too sentimental and
cannot be taken seriously.
Slippery: Something that is slippery is smooth, wet, or oily and is therefore
difficult to walk on or to hold.
Clutching: If you clutch at something or clutch something, you hold it tightly,
usually because you are afraid or anxious. In a vehicle, the clutch is the
pedal that you press before you change gear. A clutch of eggs is a number of
eggs laid by a bird at one time.
We opted to go to the Dominican
Republic for Christmas and new year, for reasons somewhat lost on me now, but
which mainly centred around it being nigh-impossible to get
directly to Cuba from New York at the time. We were looking for high
temperatures, a beach, and an absence of traditional seasonal offerings. If
Cuba was out, then the
Dominican Republic would have
to do.
Nigh: Near
2nd conditional where
the infinitive, in the second part is changed by “have to do”
Christmas and I have a chequered history. It turns out that there are several Christmases I’d rather forget:
a Caribbean Christmas, I rationalised, would transcend the ghosts of Christmas
past. There would be no tinsel, turkey or
tree. Instead, we would be holed up in a
charming villa in a tropical paradise. The sea would be crystal-clear, the
cocktails wouldn’t give us hangovers, and we would parade around
in our swimwear looking like a Sandals
advertisement. It was a good idea – until we got to the Dominican Republic.
Chequered (UK) checkered (USA): If a person or organization has had a chequered
career or history, they have had a varied past with both good and bad periods.
Tinsel: Christmas garland
Hole up: If you hole up somewhere, you hide or shut yourself there, usually so
that people cannot find you or disturb you.
Parade around: If someone parades, they walk about somewhere in order to be seen and
admired.
Sandals: Sandals Resort are “The World’s only 5 star luxury included resorts”.
In other sense, sandals are light shoes that you wear in warm weather,
We landed at 5am on Christmas Eve
and waited around in a truly miserable room
– “hotel” is too strong a word – until it was time to be transported to our
villa by the beach. Sun, sea, and sand. Barbecues and pina coladas. All good
things. But, not it turns out, at Christmas time.
Truly: Really, actually
There’s a photograph of me that
Christmas Day. I’m on the beach, wearing a colourful dress, a beer beside me.
And I look utterly miserable. The problem, it seems, is that when you’re not
used to it, Christmas in the sunshine just doesn’t feel right. Luckily I didn’t
have to worry about that for long, as it soon began to rain. And – I appreciate
that my memory may be playing tricks on me here – it rained for a fair portion
of the trip.
The
highlight of our
holiday was playing crazy golf on Christmas Day. That was the sum total of
local attractions, if you discount the bar and club, which was depressingly
full of sex tourists. We played game after game of Scrabble, and my boyfriend
won every single one. This frustrated me so much I threw a full-on temper tantrum. I couldn’t
even lose myself in a good book – my preferred activity on holiday – as I had
to read a particularly dull assigned text
about evolution for one of my classes.
The
highlight: The
highlights of an event, activity, or period of time are the most interesting or
exciting parts of it.
Full-on: Full-on is used to describe things or activities that have all the
characteristics of their type, or are done in the strongest or most extreme way
possible.
Temper tantrum: If a child has a tantrum, they lose their temper in a noisy and
uncontrolled way. If you say that an adult is throwing a tantrum, you are
criticizing them for losing their temper and acting in a childish way.
Dull: If you describe someone or something as dull, you mean they are not
interesting or exciting. Bored.
What there was, however, was rum –
and plenty of it. We got so bored and drunk one night in the sex-tourism bar we
thought it was a good idea to go with some locals to their place to get further
intoxicated. We had rented a scooter, so we followed them for miles to what
looked like a murder house. Half built; replete with bare
bulbs to complement the bare mattress on the
floor. The locals left us there and said they were going to get supplies. We sobered up, realised we were going to be mugged, kidnapped or worse, and fled.
Bare: Naked
Mattress: A mattress is the large, flat object which is put on a bed to make it
comfortable to sleep on.
Sober up:
If
someone sobers up, or if something sobers them up, they become sober after
being drunk.
Mug: If someone mugs you, they attack you in order to steal your money.
Flee / fled / fled: If you flee from something or someone, or flee a person or thing, you
escape from them.
After the trip was (finally) over,
we flew back to London together, as I had some time off college. But my
boyfriend sat in premium economy and I sat in economy. He said he booked
himself premium economy “by accident”.
There was one final surprise: I
caught crabs from sitting on that bare mattress in the murder house.
Eleven years on, I’ll never be
completely sure that one can book premium economy by accident – but at the
time, it was the only theory that fit. There are many reasons why relationships
end, and although it
would be a neat moral lesson to say that our Caribbean Christmas revealed the
cracks in ours and the error of our ways, I can’t: we stayed together for a
further five years, off and on. But our tropical torment did teach me one
valuable lesson at least: don’t go on holiday at Christmas.
We had flown 1,500 miles , but you
can’t outrun the
season. It will overtake you and flatten
you like a truck. You can’t beat it no
matter what you do. Trying to ignore it is sheer folly: you will
get drunk and fall in the mud; you will lose at Scrabble; and you will end up
with pubic lice. I have since made my peace with Christmas, and these days, I
do my best to embrace it in all its flawed, festive
glory.
Overtake: If someone or something overtakes a competitor, they become more
successful than them.
Flatten: To flatten something such as a building, town, or plant means to
destroy it by knocking it down or crushing it.
Truck: Rubbish. The most normal use refers to a kind of lorry.
Sheer: Pure, utter, absolute
Flawed: Imperfect. Something that is flawed has a mark, fault, or mistake in
it.
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