Spending Christmas without my son taught me how to indulge my inner child

No Christmas Day goes by without me taking a moment to remember the Christmas I had to spend without my child. I’d had him the year before and it was my ex-husband’s turn. That horrible period of my life was eight years ago now, and I’ve since rebuilt myself (if columns could have a soundtrack, this one’s will be Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”). But still, every Christmas, I have a peak at the past and that dreadful day when my four-year-old wasn’t with me. It’s fair to say I wasn’t a brave little soldier about it.

It was my first and last Christmas without him. After that, we split the day. Still not great, but nowhere near as bad. The thing is, for splitting Christmas to really work, being on friendly terms with your ex is key. That Christmas, I was still raw from our break-up. It was all I could talk about or think about. It was also possibly the worst time to have been booked on Live At The Apollo. Making jokes about your ex-husband on national television is, I can attest, not the most conciliatory move, nor does it endear you to the British public. The fact I agreed to be on that show when so out of my mind with pain still flabbergasts me. I should have been in an all-white room with billowing curtains listening to whale music. Ah, well – you live, you learn, you’re never booked back.

These days, peace reigns between my son’s father and I. We live a short walk from each other and, because we are both welcome to pop into each other’s homes during the day for a drink, the handover isn’t the clawing-at-your-heart agony it once was. Sweet, isn’t it? It only took us seven years to get here. Still, we are here now, and every Christmas I am relieved and thankful all over again.

Eight years ago, I was pin-balling around my neighbourhood friends, ending up in a heap on my bed, alone except for the surplus chocolate cake someone had given me to take home.

My heart goes out to every parent who might be going through anything similar this year. You have to put on a brave face for the kids at a time where you are feeling the worst.

“Two sets of presents, though!” is the customary mantra children of separated parents feel compelled to trot out when asked about Christmas. One of the most heartbreaking things when you separate is how your kids – even the smallest ones – try to avoid adding to your hurt feelings by chirpily hiding their own. I did it myself as a child. Your parent is sad so you clown around, doing everything you can cheer them up and assure them the sad things are not making you sad. But they are – of course they are.

Separated parents get offered a lot of advice offered at Christmas. One friend urged me to use the time to “Make new traditions!” I suppose sobbing drunkenly into a chocolate cake is a tradition of sorts.

“Volunteer in a soup kitchen!” was another, but you don’t always know how you are going to feel on the day, or have the presence of mind to sort out a volunteer place. Can you just rock up to a soup kitchen on Christmas Day and say “I feel sad, can I hang out with you guys today?” My feeling is that you’d just be in the way.

Then there are online support networks – though I don’t know about you, but when I’m in the gloop of sadness, I can’t always connect with people in the same boat.

I didn’t hear the terms “self-care” or “self-soothe” until a couple of years ago. The concepts hadn’t occurred to me, either; I thought my job was to soothe and care for my child. Yet now, as a self-partnered person (thanks, Hermione), I embrace the ritual of buying Christmas presents for myself and putting them under the tree. I don’t care how weird that sounds – I’m the only person who knows I want a great big hardback of Posy Simmonds cartoons, so why shouldn’t I have one wrapped up and waiting for me?

No matter how hard this Christmas is for you, treat yourself as though you were your own beloved child. Buy yourself a gift from Santa, give yourself things to eat you know you will love, take yourself to places and to people you are fond of, and if you want to eat chocolate cake in bed all day, tell yourself it will rot your teeth but let yourself anyway.