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Dear Reader, As a soon-to-be-divorced parent, my future Christmases just flashed before my eyes. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t hate what I saw. Because what is Christmas actually about if it’s not suffering through your turkey with awful relatives or choking down pavlova with a side-serve of seething rage? How, pray tell, would you spend Boxing Day if not talking to your sister-in-law about the fact that Uncle Fred came to lunch with one bottle of Spumante and then spent the day sipping on Ian’s vintage Bollinger AGAIN?
For Pete’s sake woman … WHERE IS YOUR CHRISTMAS SPIRIT? Note to my extended family: if you’re reading this, I want you to know what a hardship it has been, enduring excruciatingly harmonious Christmases with you lot year after year, without so much as a snippy comment or a drunk uncle or a handsy Santa. How is an author supposed to find an inspired murder plot with you bunch happy fools – Irish dancing and performing in the family talent quest and being revoltingly supportive of each other all the time? DO BETTER. Where was I? Ah yes, there is one thing I’d like to address before we go any further. You start your letter with the sentence “My husband’s adult children seem to think that inviting us and his ex-wife to Christmas lunch together is ok.” I want to be clear - I agree with his adult children. It is perfectly ok to invite you all to lunch. I’m assuming this is convenient for them, and preferable to having to do the Christmas day dash from parent to parent (potentially with children in tow?). There’s nothing wrong with them considering their own needs (if that is what they are doing). Frankly, I think you could take a leaf out of their book and do the same. In short: I don’t think the adult children are the villains here. I don’t think the ex-wife is the villain. In fact, if all of these players were characters in one of my books, I honestly don’t know who I would murder, which frankly, I find quite distressing. So what am I saying? This, I think: It’s perfectly ok for you and your husband to skip it. It’s perfectly ok for you and your husband to go every other year. It’s perfectly ok for you to skip it, and have your husband go alone. After all, these aren’t your monkeys or your circus. You are free to cut and run to Barbados if you want to. Why wouldn’t you do that FOR THE LOVE OF GOD? Your final option, and I think the best one, is that you go to Barbados, and send me along to lunch as your husband’s date. That way, you get Barbados, I get family drama, and all of my readers get a new book. Win. Win. Win. Sally x
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