Louisa Whitehead-Payne, High50's Dating Columnist, is spending Christmas with her new boyfriend Delightful Dick and his grown-up children, Emma and Jon. And she is bringing her dog to visit for the first time. Baxter is a big hairy mutt of sandy hue and uncertain parentage.
My Christmases have been mostly spent in a castle in Scotland with my now ex-husband. Having no siblings, parents surviving or children, I now have no automatic home at Christmas. But, inundated with invitations, I spent the last two holidays with family, people who have known me for decades and love me.
Christmas always involved log fires, dog walks, charades, games and gifts both lavish and daft. I don't know what to expect in the minimalist designer barn with the man I am just starting to fall in love with.
I hope I have got the presents right, spending on DD roughly what he had spent for my birthday, with two posh presents and a stocking from Santa. And a stocking for each of his children.
I am making dinner tonight and I am the first person who has been allowed to cook in DD's pristine kitchen. And Baxter is the first dog ever to have crossed the immaculate threshold. It must be love.
Christmas Day dawns and Santa has visited DD but has not left me with so much as a lump of coal. Have I been a bad girl this year? Not such a big miss as we had not discussed whether Santa might visit.
DD is a great cook. The children arrive and we sit down to the best Christmas dinner I have ever tasted, despite DDs relentless self-criticism on the culinary details. It was yummy. No debate.
It's The Thought That Counts...
Then comes the giving and receiving of gifts. Emma and Jon are delighted by my stockings, which contain yummy, trendy and silly bits and bobs. DD is pleased with the super-cool brand of shirt, but describes the Hozier tickets and the trip to Amsterdam as "overgenerous". I am uncomprehending and really hurt.
His gifts to me are a book and a set of kitchen knives. I perform my best delighted act, but I can't see how you could give someone you love such an impersonal present. So I love him and he doesn't love me. A bit of an overreaction perhaps, but I definitely don't feel seen or known.
Phoning Home And Feeling Distant
As soon as the kids depart, I make calls to my family to wish them Happy Christmas. When I put the phone down after speaking to my cousin, I feel trapped and very distant from anyone that loves me.
As I shed a few tears, DD pops his head round the door and bizarrely concludes that my upset is all his fault. I try to explain my existential crisis, but I can't articulate it or get him to realise that my distress is all about me.
Under pressure to tell him how he might have prevented this, perhaps with better-cooked sprouts or something, I blurt out that I have shown him love but he hasn't loved me back. The knives proved it.
Then the emotional s*** really hits the fan. We spend most of the night both in tears, each trying in vain to make the other see our point of view. Most of it is incomprehensible to each other and to ourselves.
He finally falls asleep and I sneak out and sleep with the dog, just to feel warmth from something familiar. I creep back into DD's bed just as dawn breaks.
Boxing Day Break-Up - Or Is It?
A new day and I still cannot get a lid on my feelings of loss and panic. A walk in the bracing sea air with Baxter doesn't help. I just want to walk into the sea and never come out again. I decide I must go home to regroup.
I tell DD that I intend to go home, not to break up, but to regroup. Unsurprisingly, DD takes it badly. I pack my things, get in the car and the goodbye we say to each other feels very final.
A while back, I had arranged to visit an aunt that morning. I don't want to let her down by cancelling. But I need to fill time until she is expecting me, so decide it might be nice to swing by my childhood home. Seeing it sets me off again and I sit outside in the car sobbing for an hour, hoping no one sees me and calls the police.
At Aunty Mary's, I burst into tears and explain the whole sorry saga, knives and all. Wise old lady, she listens and asks me what I want to happen. To my surprise, I want to go back to DD. She tells me to phone him right now and tell him.
So I dial his number. And get voicemail.
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