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It is tradition, for me, my mum and Jess, to spend the best part of Christmas Day in our pyjamas, only changing into our festive best for dinner, before swiftly changing back into our pyjamas sometimes before dessert. Well, after eating too much for dinner, if you don’t take your tights off willingly, your body will slowly reject them anyway.
After nipping into the bathroom, I pull up in front of my dressing table mirror to moisturise and put on a little bit of make-up. Just a bit of concealer and a little something brushed through my eyebrows. The kind of make-up that you can’t really see, but you look generally better for wearing it. I don’t do this any other morning apart from Christmas morning. Perhaps it comes from growing up in a generation that, even before phones had cameras, would usually see the family with some kind of new camera every year. Whether it was Dad’s old film one, the gigantic camcorder he used to take everywhere, my first digital camera, or the Polaroid Jess got for fun one year. It’s good to be camera-ready on Christmas morning.
‘I couldn’t be arsed putting make-up on,’ Jess says as she emerges from the bathroom. ‘I’ve got a bit of eyeliner still on from last night. We’ll style that out as a festive smoky eye.’
‘Classy,’ I tease her.
Jess and I are the last people to make it downstairs, heading down together when we’re both as ready as we are willing to be.
Mum is buzzing around the kitchen, doing bits to put the finishing touches on the breakfast table.
‘Oh, my God, Mum, this looks great!’ I blurt excitedly.
You know in American movies, where the mum lays out the absolute works for breakfast, and yet her kids still just sip some orange juice and grab a dry piece of toast as they run for the bus? That’s the kind of breakfast spread we’re working with today. The main difference being that, at the very least, Jess and I will graze indiscriminately, without giving a second thought to the big meal that we know is coming later in the day.
Dad reaches out to take a strawberry.
‘Oi,’ Mum ticks him off. ‘There’s one condition, before anyone can eat. Family tradition.’
As I look closer, I realise there is a wrapped present on the dining chairs, one for each of us.
‘What’s this?’ Gail asks enthusiastically.
Mum removes her dressing gown to reveal the dorkiest pair of festive pyjamas I’ve ever seen. They’re bright red with various Christmas items and slogans all over them. They’re loud and busy – a real festive overload. She looks adorable in them.
‘It’s our family’s tradition, to wear our Christmas pyjamas on Christmas Day,’ Mum points out. ‘So I got matching sets for the whole family.’
‘Even me?’ Declan asks in disbelief.
‘Even you,’ Mum replies through a laugh. ‘So, if anyone wants to eat breakfast and open presents, best change into your uniform.’
Gail takes hers excitedly and hurries upstairs. My dad takes his but, before he joins Gail, I watch him approach my mum in the kitchen and whisper something into her ear before kissing her on the cheek.
I look over at Jess, who has taken this opportunity to sneak a pastry. As she crams a whole vanilla crown (a mini one, thankfully) into her mouth, we exchange a look. Something is going on with those two. Perhaps if I keep a close eye on them today, I can figure it out.
Jess and I grab our pyjamas and head upstairs together.
‘What do you think they’re doing?’ Jess asks me once we’re in the sanctuary of our bedroom. It feels like being kids again, hiding in our room, wondering what was going on with Mum and Dad. ‘You don’t really think they’re having an affair, do you?’
‘Without any of the evidence, I would have bet my life that Mum would never do to anyone what Dad did to her,’ I say as I swap the pyjamas I slept in for my new festive ones.
‘Maybe she feels like it’s different, because Dad was hers first?’ Jess suggests.
‘I don’t know, it must be something more? But the only things I can think of are much worse. Like maybe one of them is ill?’
The thought makes me go cold. You’ve got to wonder what sort of thing could be going on that would reunite our parents, though.
‘It makes me think that maybe it’s something that relates to us,’ I offer up. ‘Something they’re dealing with together.’
‘Yeah, like the two of them getting back together,’ Jess replies. ‘You’ve seen what Dad’s like around Mum now, which is gross, because it’s all down to her new look, she’s still the same person on the inside, the same one he left.’
I shudder.
‘Right, how do we look?’ I ask as I do up my last button.
Jess and I stand in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom, taking in our pyjamas. Jess hooks an arm around my neck and hangs off me as she takes a photo of us together in the mirror.
‘We look like absolute losers,’ she says. ‘But cute ones, at least. You know, with the family freak show we’ve got going on, I’m pretty sure we could go viral on TikTok, if we all did a video in our matching pyjamas, showing how cute our disturbing family unit is. Our divorced parents, Dad’s new wife, us and your ex, all in our matching jammies.’
