It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

There were no cards on the wall, nothing to celebrate the season at all.

The Christmas Tree Stood There All Stark And Alone, in this place I can no longer call a Home.

The stockings weren’t hung up, there was nobody there, no one on earth to even care.

The children were fast asleep in their beds, 10 miles away, while visions of sugar plums fairies danced in their heads.

There’s no lists for Santa for me to post this year, no excited faces, no Christmas Cheer.

And on Christmas Morning, I wake up in tears, remembering all the forgotten years, when I used to get presents and Brandy too, when my stocking was full and I’d wake up near you, and the children would be jumping on the bed, all gleeful and happy. Now There’s Just Dread.

You come to the door, my fixed smile is in place, while really my heart is about to break.

Everything now is no longer real, it’s all about acting and disguising how I feel.

I get to my children, half the presents are opened, but I pretend I was there, that I don’t really care.

I stand in the kitchen stirring the gravy, making Christmas Dinner for my babies, my mind full of ifs, buts and maybes.

To anyone else I’m just a wife and mother, but this home’s not mine. I am on borrowed time. And I might be welcome here on this day, but what does it mean if it’s not always that way?

We sit round the table. It’s loaded with pies, and you’re looking at me with those soulful eyes. You make conversation, pretend to care, but both of us know you don’t want me there.

It’s called ‘civil’ for the children, to make their Christmas nice, while I sit there with tears in my eyes. So many words left unsaid, papering over the cracks because this family’s dead.

I don’t get any kisses under the mistletoe. My heart is breaking, and you know.
The kids are playing by the tree, I pour myself a large whisky.
Of course the stuff was meant for Santa and his elves, but I need it more than he.

At the end of the day, you drive me home, and once again I am alone.
Christmas isn’t about good cheer, it’s just the passing of another year.
The start of one anew.
Another Year without you.