SOME PRESENTS you accept through gritted teeth. At least my mother asked for advice regarding the material of the object in question. I’ll never know now what she would have said if I’d replied black silk and very little of it, but why invite further insult, I asked myself, as I settled for flannelette, with long sleeves.

Why she’s giving me a nightie for Christmas I do not know, it being decades since I wore anything in bed. I have hazarded guesses which are wildly flattering. Maybe she thinks the British Army will ignore the Provo seasonal cease-fire, implement internment, come bursting through the door in the middle of the night, see me as nature intended, and become inflamed with such desire that they would refuse to accept even total unconditional IRA surrender, plus delivery of all the Semtex in its possession, lest they be deprived of the opportunity to ever again see me naked as the baby Jesus. Clearly, my mother is giving me a nightie in the hope of preserving peace.

Or else she thinks it’s way past time I covered myself up, which is kinda depressing.

A friend to whom I presented a new pair of glasses last Christmas reacted with similar gloom to what I thought was extravagant largesse. The spectacles set me back seventy-five pounds and I had been dead pleased with the originality of the gesture, which I thought a tasteful, unobtrusive, quid pro quo for a huge favour she had done me earlier, for which she would accept no financial reward.

She did not see it like that. Given that she could see very little before the gift was unwrapped – her old pair were as scored as an ice-rink – her reaction gasted my flabber somewhat. Christmas was supposed to be a time of goodwill, she said, not an opportunity for reminding people that they were dependent on life-supports for the rest of their time on earth. She supposed that next time she gave me a helping hand I’d land round on the eve of the 25th with a new pair of state of the art dentures.

Her teeth were perfect, I protested. For how long, she responded? There was no getting away from the fact that I had presented her with an unmistakable intimation of her own mortality. Soon her friends would be giving her things like do-it-yourself ratchet kits for tuning up the wheelchair. Or those electric yokes for massaging arthritic limbs.

BORN FOR JOY

Even when you get it right, it goes wrong. I was once given an invitation, all expenses paid, to a destination unknown and told to turn up at Dublin airport on Stephen’s Day. (This was in the days before people thought I was fit for nothing better than wearing a nightie). On Christmas Eve, a friend landed in and said “I hear you’re going to Barcelona.”

Then again, I know a woman who asked her Santa for a multiple orgasm, got it, and was left pregnant as well. At least it was traditional. Long time ago in Bethlehem, Mary asked for a night in a hotel and got stuck in the pits.

What, I wonder, would we ask for if someone offered to grant the heart’s desire on Christmas Day? Apart from having your nightie ripped off, the turkey left to burn in the oven and a lovely plate of bacon and eggs afterwards, that is, and even that would be second best. Sure you can have that any Saturday afternoon, if you’re lucky. It’s not uniquely Christmassy, is it?

It cannot be. It can never be. Nothing can ever again be the same as waking up, innocent heart hammering, believing in Santa, and wondering what he’s brought you, free gratis and for nothing, just because you exist. The great thing about it was you didn’t even know it was because you were a child, and certainly not a child in the Christian tradition.

You thought it happened to everyone, all over the world – that people just woke up on Christmas morning and found themselves showered with gifts, not the least of which was sheer unadulterated happiness. Your mammy was happy, your daddy was happy, your sisters and brothers were happy, the neighbours were happy, all your friends were happy, the people in the streets were happy – and there was music. Everywhere there was music. Enchanting songs and harmonies that told of goodness, joy, stars in the night sky, and even poor people got winter fuel from King Wencelas, so that nobody at all was cold, not even on the day after Christmas.

Glory beamed from heaven afar, heavenly hosts sang alleluia, and no matter how bad things might become they’d definitely get better again because Christ the saviour was born.

That’s what I believed, that’s what you believed, and it was true every single time it happened, and the best thing of all was it would happen again the following year, forever and ever and ever more, amen.

And it was great while it lasted, that conviction that the human race was born for joy, and if you manage to recapture even a fragment of a sense of that this coming Christmas, good luck to you. If not, it’ll soon be over, won’t it? There’s always that, isn’t there?

The possibility of a happy New Year, now we’ve got this one nearly out of the way. (No matter what my mother thinks, there’s a hopeful part of me that never grew up). •