Lonely This Christmas

Christmas is far and away my favourite time of the year. A rare moment in the calendar to slow down and unwind. The chance to savour the food and the wine, however humbly it arrives on the table. A time to reflect on the year, warts and all, and an opportunity to be grateful for what one has. Call me sentimental, but walking home after a frostbitten trudge to Midnight Mass, you can almost feel the ‘goodwill to all men’ hanging in the air, even as an atheist.

The Christmases of my youth are still vivid in my imagination. If I close my eyes, I can smell, touch and taste them: the December chill, vanquished by our home’s one and only fireplace as we roasted our derrières around it; the decorations that lost little of their magic with the passing years; the shared experience of making third-rate (but nonetheless delicious) sausage rolls and mince pies on Christmas Eve; the hint of snow in the air, and the rare delight when it landed punctually; the sleepless nights waiting for the dawn to break; the chime of long-silenced church bells; the Christmas carols playing on the radio; the gathering of distant relatives, some more welcome than others; the taste of Christmas turkey (no apologies, I’m a traditionalist!); the glory of the Quality Street and Roses tins, sadly now miniature in stature; Christmas television on in the background, with Carry On medleys and gems like The Box of Delights; suitcases choc-a-block with the remnants of Cadbury’s Christmas stockings (God bless that ubiquitous cop-out of a present!)… I could go on.

However miserable I have become as an adult, the magic of Christmas has never quite escaped me. And in recent years as a father, I have tried to bestow this wonderful gift onto my two beautiful daughters. Judging by their excitement in the run-up to the big day this year, I’ve not done too bad a job.

Except this year, there is no point. Hark the herald angels may be singing, but they are doing so on an unknown doorstep. Thanks to the early stages of a divorce process, instead of the priceless joy of my daughters’ company on this merriest of occasions, I was curtly informed a few days prior to Christmas that they would be ‘spending the day at a party with friends’. There is, of course, nothing coincidental about the timing. My ex is alienating my children from me, and this first Christmas without them will be her crowning achievement. I did in fact demand to see them briefly this morning - a very rushed present opening, which felt staged and perfunctory, but this was almost worse than not seeing them at all; the Christmas equivalent of the Bullseye ‘look at what you could have won!’

Seeing as I’ve cracked open the Scotch early, cheers Jim!

It is now 10am and I sit here alone in the house with tears in my eyes, without the customary need for Alastair Sim or James Stewart to engender them. As Mud’s Lonely This Christmas plays cruelly on my YouTube Christmas playlist, I muse on the enormity of what has been stolen from me: not merely the joy of my own Christmas, but more poignantly the joy of theirs. The unwrapping of every gift, the first proper tasting of Christmas food for my youngest, the laughter, the games, the tantrums over Monopoly (hopefully not mine). And the chance to participate in their memories, gone forever. Men commit suicide four times more than women at the best of times, but fathers who are victims of the divorce system kill themselves eight times more. That’s a painful, yet perfectly understandable statistic.

This is the reality of divorce for many fathers over the Christmas period: not just excluded generally, but shut out entirely on the one day of the year that matters more than any other. Once head of the household, suddenly relegated to persona non grata; more Tiny Tim than the Scrooge he is portrayed as.

Unfortunately, there is little chance of things improving any time soon. Like Dickens’ most terrifying phantom, this is a sign of Christmases to come; what my lawyer assures me is at least a year’s worth of interminable wrangling in the courts - during which, only the following is certain:

• My access to the children will be limited

• The tactics employed will be despicable (child alienation is child abuse)

• Only one side has to abide by the law

• Any attempts to protect the children will be considered criminal, while the poisoning, brainwashing and lying continues unimpeded

• I will be funding both sides of the litigation

• The result, prioritising the needs of the mother, is a foregone conclusion

I don’t wish to bore you with a lot of ‘he said, she said’, there is unquestionably marital fault on both sides. No man or woman is a saint, and I confess when it comes to canonisation, I will most likely be nearer the back than the front of the queue. However, what does that matter, when only one side of the equation ever appears to bear responsibility for the evils of divorce? Why is it that the role of the father is so evidently dispensable in the eyes of the divorce courts, except when it comes to our typecasting as cash registers?

I have tried absolutely everything to dodge this scenario. When it was clear that divorce was unavoidable, I offered everything from a 50/50 split, main custody and (relatively) generous child support, to 100% of all family assets, zero child support necessary and no restrictions on access for her, if the children could stay with me. Both were met by the same two-word reply, by someone who clearly believes it is in a child’s best interest not to see a parent she disapproves of.

Sitting here alone now, I am faced with the loneliest of thoughts. The abject terror that my children are already slipping away from me, never to return. The inescapable conclusion that I am to blame whatever I do – causing distress when I fight for them, failing them if I give in too easily. The helplessness is perhaps the worst part. Thanks to the utter contempt and negligence shown by all the relevant authorities to take parental alienation seriously, it feels like there is no recourse except to nuclear mode; a response which would give the other side exactly what it craves - the opportunity to play the victim, thanks to the narrative of ‘toxic masculinity’. I know what my own father would have done in this situation. I also know that he’d wind up in the nick – a place I’d be perfectly willing to go, provided it was in my children’s best interests. But besides satisfying my ego momentarily, how could a father in prison possibly be of use?

It is now 11am. The Christmas tree is standing firm, but the lights are off. The turkey will remain uncooked in the fridge, as there are no mouths to enjoy it. There will be no crackers pulled, no silly hats worn, nor crummy jokes groaned at. It may be a Wonderful Life for George Bailey, but back down on Earth, Clarence the Angel is yet to make an appearance. My children are not here, and therefore Christmas is meaningless.

What’s the point even in writing then you may ask? Perhaps nothing, although it may help some other poor souls going through the same hell. It may have stopped me wallowing in my own misery for an hour or so. It may raise awareness. And most of all, my children might read this one day, and realise that (despite what they’ve been told) daddy didn’t desert them.

Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.

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