Frog legs & a side of bacon

I never met anyone who doesn't like Christmas, well I did but I certainly didn't stick around them for long. I mean seriously, what is not to love? Everything is covered in glitter. Everyone is mostly happy, if the weather dumps a ton of snow on us, for once we don't complain. Instead, we oh and ah at how Christmassy everything is.

My decorations are always the talk of our street, I'm sure people make an excuse to visit me and to stare in wonder and delight at them. From as far back as I can remember Christmas is a massive deal for me.

Perhaps some can argue I overcompensate due to my parents death at the hands of a drunk driver on Christmas Eve. The other camp of people, can't work out why I love the season which holds such a tragic memory. A fateful evening when the babysitter allows a police officer into our home to gently and softly explain to me my parents shall not come home. I continue playing with my Barbie's and their shop, this man is interrupting her at work.

Yes, I am upset. Of course, I am, but at five years old, people telling me my parents are dead doesn't quite sink in. Asking awkward questions like, when's mummy coming home? By the time I figure this out I live with my grandparents and all too soon I forget what mum and dad look like.

Occasionally then, and to this day, while in a crowded shop I catch a faint trail of perfume on a breeze and my head sighs, mum, as I look around for her. I can't name the brand of perfume, but when I catch the fragrance, a memory sparks in my mind.

The trouble with grandparents is they don't stick around for the long term. Mine die when I am 13, and within days of each other. By this point I forgive you for your vision of me as a teenage grim reaper. My angelic smile and sparkling green eyes, pale skin and rosy cheeks may all be a con I suppose. The night Pops passes away I take the kitchen scissors and chop off my beautiful long red curls, leaving myself tufty. The outside now reflects the inside, is how I am rationalising my actions.

Tufty, sticking out in all the wrong places and unable to fit in, now I am alone in the world. None of our extended family want to take me onboard. Consider this, you are 13 and your instruction from a stranger is to pack a bag, yes one bag.

To leave the only home you know and all the memories the home contains. You never packed a lunch let alone a bag before. The authorities leave me alone as I wander around the house selecting a picture of my grandparents, terror gripping the pit of my stomach.

What if I forget what they look like as I did with my parents?

Helping me to choose another item, the strangers in this picture stare back at me as my eyes begin to well over, blinding me from the faces I don't remember. The pole is in the usual spot, I drag with all my might to pull the attic door and ladder down. A slender hand grips the rail, my senses on high alert. Knowing I am breaking a rule. The attic is off bounds to me. The rule is no longer valid, my dead grandmother's and therefore it dies with her.

A bout of sneezes overwhelms me as the stale air attacks, my nose wrinkles in disgust. Brushing my hand on my no longer immaculate t-shirt.

Who will wash my clothes now?

The huge box of Christmas decorations is a few steps from me and I start undoing the crispy un-sticky tape. Delving up to my armpits I pull out a handful of gaudy decorations and chuck them into the carrier bag with the photographs. Returning for another armful, and another until the bag is bursting with the decorations.

I struggle down the ladder not bothering to try to replace the door, wondering if Uncle Dave shall finally take Pops's train set. He's wanted to sell the set for years explaining to anyone who feigns interest, how much the trains are worth.

The lady in her threadbare tweed jacket and 'nice' skirt which just brushes below the knee takes the bag from me her expression one of confusion creasing her forehead. She doesn't care enough to ask the tufty little orphan any questions. I follow her out of the house for the last time.

Until, as an adult, and with access to the meagre savings my family leave me I am able to scrap together a deposit on a house, their house, my home. At 18 and no longer a ward of the court, I land a modest job as a secretary in an office which is walking distance from my new, old, home.

In early December the house completes and I move in, Sandy, my friend begs me to go out and celebrate with her and some other girls from work. With reluctance, I agree, I am still and will always remain tufty, and not fitting in.

Sandy helps me choose something unlike me to wear and puts more makeup on me than I ever wear. She is trying to pair me up, one of life's perpetual match makers, but I'm not keen on boys my age. Always finding the older guys much more attractive and calm. Perhaps I am looking for a father figure. The loss of him so early in my life still causing issues. Sure, a psychiatrist will give me a label or a long word which I can't pronounce or spell.

At the end of the night Paul, who I chat to all night asks to take me home, I ignore Sandy and her over loud whisper, he's old enough to be my dad, and agree.

Wrapping my coat around me against the Arctic blast of air which embraces me as I wrench the door open. He places his arm around my shoulder and guides me out. I explain, I only live 5 minutes walk, and he puts his keys back in his pocket.

My house door reminds me I need some oil for the hinges, as it makes a satisfactory impression of a haunted house. I turn to catch sight of his face as he takes in the grotto which is my living room. He wanders to the tree picking up one of my favourite ornaments, a Hallmark Kermit and Miss Piggy piece, entitled, on frozen pond. Miss Piggy wears a Santa outfit with white boots and Kermit dons an adorable red scarf and black boots.

Please be careful.

He scowls as his brow furrows, "I hate Christmas?" His fist curls around my precious, porcelain ornament. The alcohol in his system making his judgement off, the crunching sound unmistakable.

"I'm so sorry, do you have some glue? Miss Piggy is legless," he laughs at a joke which I am unimpressed by to say the least.

"I think you should leave," I make for the door to encourage him along, and he staggers towards me, trying to reason with me. Being less intoxicated I access the situation.

"This is silly, it's just a tree decoration. Here take a seat and I'll make us a coffee," my fake smile lulls him into a false sense of comfort, and he requests something stronger.

Not being a drinker he's lucky I bought a bottle of brandy for my mince pies, somewhere.

"Lived here long?" Paul asks me.

"No, I got my keys the other week, we were celebrating tonight." A grunt comes from the other room.

He starts telling me his story, giving me an explanation of why he hates Christmas. Treating my grotto like a confessional booth at the local church. I am only half listening when I register what he is telling me. How he gets arrested and goes to prison at Christmas, for drink-driving.

Taking his drink into the room his head is in his hands, as his shoulders shake with emotion.

"Wh--at happened?" I can barely speak. Knowing what he is going to tell me.

Life is always one to fulfil when the dread enters your stomach. He begins to tell me about the trauma he went through so many years ago not far from here. The way he explains the incident, as though he is hard done by, he is the victim.

"Paul, this house is my Grandparents, when my parents died at the hands of a drunk driver they took me in, I was five years old..."

"No, no, no," Paul stammers.

"You were going to drive tonight Paul. Not learning from your past, I will tell you from an actual victim what the repercussions of your actions are for me."

Sitting cross-legged on the floor before my parents killer I explain my life, from the moment my grandparents die and a child who expresses her pain the only way she knows how, cutting all her hair off. A child who packs Christmas ornaments rather than clothes and toys.

I beg Paul to open his eyes to what the real victim suffers and how he can't do this to another little child, full of terror. There is no accusation, no blame. I offer him my help, and he accepts.

As the years pass Paul discovers if I can forgive him, he can forgive himself we became best friends and our friendship blossoms into romance. We never speak to anyone about that night not our children, our grandchildren or their children who always visit us for Christmas.

I sit smiling at my Christmas tree now, the glued together Miss Piggy and Kermit skating along holding each other up. Wondering what would have happened to us if I never put the Christmas ornaments in the bag. I have no regrets, I saved a man--a man who made a mistake. He paid, as did I.

He needed my forgiveness to forgive himself.