Mamma Christmas

Ah, Christmas. People told me it’d be different with a child around.

They were right.

It’s all about the children, they said.

They were wrong.

Christmas this year wasn’t about the boy-child. Sure, he was the excuse for not going home to our respective families, but while me, Papà A, DJ S and T were rolling out tortellini on the kitchen table for our Christmas Eve banquet, knocking back fine wines, and opening our stockings, he was in bed, with no idea of the carousing taking place two floors below. He kind of liked his presents, or the wrapping paper, at least, but the best thing for him was having us all with him for the whole day.

No, the big difference this year was in myself. Becoming a mother has had an extraordinary, and somewhat scary effect on me, which reached its zenith in the run up to the festivities.

I’ve never cared much about Christmas decorations, or trees, or bothered about cards, except to favoured aunts of whom I’m terribly fond, but never see. This year, all that changed.

The first weekend in December, I harangued Papà A into going out en famille to buy a tree. Luckily, he played along nicely, and despite his bad back, lugged it home to stand proudly in the corner of the dining room. Wine was mulled, and decorations, collected on our travels over the year, were hung, including – from Uncle Filippo – a Saudi Arabian teddy bear in a burqua who graced the top of the tree as a fairy.

That was just the start of it. As Papà A made a sharp, and somewhat grateful exit back to work in Milan, I settled down to business, creating complex arrangements of eucalyptus and hawthorn berries, (potentially lethal to the boy-child but awfully pretty), trawling the internet for gifts, and writing cards at the kitchen table to a soundtrack of King’s College Choir singing Christmas carols. I began to scan the covers of women’s magazines, wondering if I should be following their tips on how to create the perfect family day. Parcels dropped through the letter-box twice, three times a day, containing vital stocking fillers.

The worst came when I found myself in John Lewis, buying a Christmas table-cloth. It was a trip I took in secrecy, with only the boy-child for company. I know DJ S well enough to anticipate her snort if I confessed my desire for festive linen. Unable to choose between red and white, I bought both and smuggled them back to a corner of my wardrobe.

In short, I had become the kind of woman I’d never wanted to be. When I was a little girl I never thought I would be married. I looked down on my sisters for dreaming of white weddings and babies. From about the age of ten I wanted to live in a garret, preferably in Paris, definitely on my own, and being a lady novelist. And until last year, that’s pretty much what I did, albeit without the Paris part. I had a little flat, in north London, at the top of a tall house, and I lived there happily, on my own, writing books.

And then, and then. Somehow, over the last twelve months I seem to have gained both a husband and a wife, a baby, and a large house in a terribly nice part of town.

I have, in short, and despite my best intentions, become a matriarch.

This realisation came to me in a flash one evening recently as DJ S and I were curled up on the sofa watching our latest box set obsession, Downton Abbey. It wasn’t so much watching Lady Cora direct her staff – even I am aware that I am not running one of the stately homes of England – but more about how much work it takes to keep a household going.

In my previous life, I didn’t think much about cleaning, and didn’t care what I ate for dinner, as long as it was washed down with a glass or two of red wine and a couple of Marlboro Lights. It was just as likely to be a bowl of muesli as a proper meal requiring a knife and fork.

How things have changed. A house with 4/5/6 people living in it, including one child and two Italians, requires standards. There’s always something that needs to be cleaned, or repaired, or replaced. Having a baby means constant loads of laundry. Family dinners mean making lists, and shopping, and cooking, and cleaning up afterwards.

It’s not even as if I do it all myself – we have a cleaner, and more often or not it’s the boys who do the cooking. It’s not as if I spend my days staggering to the well and beating laundry on a stone. But oddly, and against every feminist principle I ever had, the running of the house fills my head much more than I ever thought it might.

Nobody forced me to run around London buying Christmas table-cloths. No-one is really upset if the windows aren’t sparkling clean. Except me. My perfectionist self won’t let it lie. If I’m going to be the lady of the house, then I’ll do it right. I shall care if the brass on the letter box isn’t polished, or if the leaves build up outside the basement. The boy-child will be fed home-cooked meals and I will write thank you letters to those who gave him Christmas presents.

But I also reserve the right, every once in a while, to run away to Paris and smoke Gauloise Blondes in profusion, washed down with fine red wine.