The joy of rediscovering your hometown at Christmas (yes, even Birmingham)

Here we are again. The Christmas parties are done and dusted, our out-of-office emails have been activated, and off we all trot back to our hometowns. People from all across the country pack their bags and head for a place they decided long ago to leave behind. It’s a holiday. It’s a tradition. It’s a moment that rewinds time.

This annual pilgrimage that so many of us do at Christmas is the closest we come to a return to youth. All at once, the streets we spent our childhoods walking are flooded with returning visitors. The pubs where we had our first legal sips of alcohol are packed out with the aged faces of people we once knew. With a sprinkling of festive magic, old companions feel like they’ve never left our sides.

As we sit back, drunk and full, on the sofas we lay on as teenagers, it’s hard not to delight in a trip down memory lane. Although we spend most of the calendar far away from these cities, they welcome us back eagerly and with open arms. We might be guests now, but we’ll always feel we belong here – it is like we’ve returned home.

For me, that home is Birmingham – the grey second city regularly scoffed at by people who have never even visited. But every year, I relish the weird, drowsy week after Christmas when the days become mangled and you can take a break to rediscover the ground where you grew up. As the crowded train pulls into the station and the announcement is made that we’ve arrived at Birmingham New Street, a sense of nostalgia starts to rise through my chest. How many times have I made this journey, I wonder. What will have changed since my last stay?

It has been seven years since I last called Birmingham home, and in the years since then, it has started to feel different. New restaurants and cafes have replaced my old favourites. Many of the friends I spent my childhood with have moved away and made roots in new places with new people. The high streets I could once recite the exact pattern of, without thinking, have grown to take on new identities. I am no longer fluent in the language of the city’s geography.

Yet at Christmas, it still feels like a little piece of familiarity. Buildings are not just buildings; they are scenes of personal history. The same buses I took with my friends as children still wait loyally to pick us up. Formative stories about first loves, underage drinking and rule-breaking are preserved in the air by school gates or our parents’ front doors. Despite all the changes, this will forever be the site where the person I’ve become was shaped.

The yearly trip back to Birmingham feels like both a luxury and an obligation. And until last December, it was the place I would spend every Christmas, no questions asked. But as winter approached in 2022, the unimaginable was suggested. “Shall we all go away for Christmas this year?” my mum floated. Soon, plane tickets were booked, and it was decided that the big day was to be spent in New York.

And sure, it was magical. We wandered up and down the famous avenues we’d seen in films, ogled giant, twinkling Christmas trees, and felt colder than I thought was possible. But it was a Christmas quite distant from the one I’ve grown to know and love. Without the shackles of the usual rituals, we had to make fresh plans. There was so much to see! Do! Experience! But – dare I say it – I missed the simplicity of holidaying in a city I already knew, revelling in recollection.

So, this year I look forward to going back to the usual festive order. I’ll say “Cheers!” with friends who have moved miles away from me, savour the horror of family drama, and feast on practised home-cooked recipes with glee. I’ll walk alongside Birmingham’s many canals (it’s got more than Venice, just so you know), and take a second to appreciate the city that defined me. I’ll remember the years that have already gone, and look forward to what’s coming after.

That’s the wonder of a city you grew up in: it has always been there. Like any old friend, Birmingham was there through the bad haircuts, embarrassing mistakes, exam results and teenage angst. So, while I might have abandoned it for greener pastures, I’ll always want to go back to reconnect.

And there’s no better time than Christmas to do it.