Mother Christmas

What fun it was to perform this for Write Up’s Christmas Edition on Saturday. I was grateful for the opportunity to be in community with so many writers in such a beautiful space in West London. Thank you for creating it and bringing us together, Amy I Beeson 🐝

Dear Kids,

Mama was not kissing Santa Claus because Santa Claus does not exist. Perhaps what you saw was your mama explaining to a man-who-is-your-dada whom those gifts were for. It might’ve been the fourth time your mama told the man-who-is-your-dada about those gifts that she bought in between work and picking up your little brother from nursery. She might have looked like she was kissing the man-who-is-your-dada, but in fact it was shouty hissing because your mama is tired. She’s the only one who’s been checking your list twice, thrice, whatever the word is for four times.

All your mama wants for Christmas is for the man who is your dada to listen the first time when she explains which gifts are for whom and from whom. That and a monastic cell with room service.

The aforementioned shopping trip was not one of the six trips to buy stocking stuffers, including her own to keep up this ruse that a man comes to your house and makes nice things for everyone in your house, including your mama. It would be poor taste for this man not to bring for her, too. So….the Nivea glow face mask, the Victorian card stock, the size 7 fuzzy socks? Those she bought. And she wrapped for herself.

The 12 days of Christmas which has doubled to 24 and now involves an elf wandering the house at night is also, you guessed it: your mama. Elves don’t freeze themselves in cute positions. And when the man-who-is-your-dada whispers to your mama in the morning “did you move the elf?” It is the man-who-is-your-dada’s way of feeling responsible and being a part of the Christmas magic, too.

There’s more. I’m sorry. Vixen and Blitzen are not reindeer. They’re your mama’s friends Ellie and Kelly who chose not to have children and look really awake when they come over to play. Sometimes they slip your mama a little game to gift you kids later because they are very kind, more like Rudolph really: on foggy nights, guiding your mama’s sleigh.

On the night you leave out cookies for the man who does not exist and carrots for the magical reindeer who do not exist, it’s cute when the man-who-is-your-dada takes bites out of the cookies your mama made (with your help) and then a big horsey bite out of the carrot, pretending to be the magical reindeer. (As noted: the man-who-is-your-dada is not the magical reindeer either but this is his big Christmas moment.)

While you will soon learn, kids, that the ideal woman is a mother and a virgin, and the magic lies in a virgin-mother—which was impossible until modern science—your mama is not a virgin though she is a mother. But she too wants a silent night.

The man who is your dada is a 21st Century Man dada who made the cut to procreate because he is kind, secure, and he cooks. But let’s be clear: your Father Christmas is, and always was,

Your Mother Christmas