I remember all of the Christmases I have had since I was seven.
I was seven years old when I was in Class One or Grade One for the CBC parents in the house (I still cannot get my head around those changes).
If I tell you which year it was, you just might figure out how old I am and I have been trying to stay vague about that fact for a very long time.
Also, the year is very irrelevant.
I just remember that Christmas because it was the year I began to take Christmas seriously.
That year, I drove my parents up the wall because I wanted to get the same Christmas outfit as my best friend June.
June had cunningly invited me to her house in mid-December to show me what her parents had bought her for Christmas.
It was a washed-denim pants and jacket combo with kittens drawn on the metallic buttons. I just had to have it, so I cried to my folks all night about it.
The next morning, they took me to Eastleigh, where we spent the rest of the day looking for that outfit. And we found it!
I still have that denim jacket and I might make my daughter wear it as well.
Anyway, after that Christmas, I became a Christmas person.
My favourite Christmases are when I’m with my entire family under one roof, especially since as we grow older, we grow apart and scattered across the country.
But this year, for some reason, I’m not feeling the Christmas spirit.
Usually, it starts around the beginning of November, when I begin making Christmas plans and planning Christmas gifts and such.
However, from the start of the year, I kind of knew that this year’s Christmas would not be the same as the others.
Usually, I try to make many small trips to go visit my folks in upcountry throughout the year, but this time, I couldn’t afford to make many of them, just two.
It has been the kind of year that makes you just want to stay in Nairobi because the thought of travelling just makes me want to gouge my eyes out.
So I have been thinking that this year, we’ll just stay home for Christmas for a change.
I told my partner the same thing and he was for the idea.
He’s less enthusiastic about Christmas and even less enthusiastic about going home for Christmas because he feels the holiday has become overly commercialised.
I guess opposites do, indeed, attract.
But plans don’t always go the way we make them because just last week, we started getting individual calls from home, like the universe was laughing in our faces.
I was called by my mother first. She wanted to know our plans for Christmas. I didn’t want to lie to her or give her false hopes, so I told her we might not be going home this year.
She hit me with what I can only assume she has been practising for years now.
“But I haven’t seen my grandchild for a very long time. I miss her!”
I don’t know how to let down an old woman.
The same call came, as if secretly planned, for my partner, with his family begging him to bring the family over (upcountry) for Christmas.
He doesn’t know how to let down his whole family.
The pressure is on either way. All I know is we probably won’t be able to be in three parts of the country for Christmas.