You have probably heard people talk about their worst ever Christmas. The day the oven broke, or the car blew up, or someone broke their leg, or a massive argument took place.
I can confidently say that my ‘worst Christmas ever’ story beats them all. My worst Christmas was also my first. And I have my father to thank. If it weren’t for my dad, I wouldn’t have been celebrating Christmas at all. And if it weren’t for him, there would have been nothing bad about that Christmas, either.
Let me explain.
Not everyone celebrates Christmas. Not even all humans celebrate Christmas. And humans are the only creatures who do. So that means that Earth is the only planet in the universe that celebrates Christmas. It’s the only planet in its solar system that has any life at all – the only planet in its whole galaxy that has any life.
And that means that my family and I had to travel a very, very long way to find it.
We come from the planet Amzabar-Kaywar, in the galaxy Blostrub. At least, that’s how you would say it. You wouldn’t be able to say it the way we say it.
I know now that humans have spent thousands of years wondering if there is any intelligent life out there in the universe. Well, there is, and we are it. At least, we’re intelligent in some ways, and not so intelligent in others. A little like humans in that respect.
You would call us aliens (which is exactly what I would call you). We call ourselves the Baver.
Some Baver never leave Amzabar-Kaywar. They have very limited horizons. My family was different. My dad, in fact, was an expert in the aliens known as human beings. He knew everything there was to know about humans. Our house (I’m calling it a house to make things easier) was full of books (I’m calling them books) on the subject of humankind. Titles included Understanding Humans, The Mind of the Human, Walking with Humans and Among Humans. My dad was such an expert on humans that he had written his own book about humans. It was called Humans: A Study of a Primitive Culture.
I was only seven at the time all this happened, so I hadn’t read Dad’s book. I’ve read it now, though, and I wonder if things would have happened differently if I had read it. The thing is… There’s no denying that Dad was very clever, and he undoubtedly knew an awful lot about human beings – more than anyone else I’ve ever met, to be sure. But reading his book, you get the impression that he didn’t really like humans very much. In fact, he seemed to think they were rather silly.
He laughed when he talked about humans, and would often recite lists of all the things that proved how stupid humans were:
- clothes
- money
- love
- The X Factor
- umbrellas
- cigarettes
- Frozen
- high-heeled shoes
- computer games
- … and lots more.
But the silliest thing of all, he always said, the thing that proved above all else how truly stupid human beings were, was Christmas.
‘It’s ridiculous!’ he would rant. ‘Every year, in the middle of winter, when everyone’s already cold and miserable and running out of money, they go to enormous amounts of trouble to buy things they can’t afford, cook food that most of them don’t really like and play the most ridiculous music. They slaughter perfectly healthy trees and drag them into their homes, then cover them with the most bizarre assortment of ornaments you’ve ever seen: angels, reindeer, stars, robins, stockings, hats, men made from snow [and then he told us what snow was], dogs made from snow [and he told us what dogs were], holly, elves, penguins, and all sorts of other things. It’s ridiculous!’ He always finished by repeating that it was ridiculous.
And yet, however silly he thought humans were, he remained extremely interested in them, and always enjoyed telling us about them. And we loved to hear about them. The way Dad talked about humans, it was hard to believe that such a species existed. They were like a strange, unbelievable story.
But when, one day, Dad offered to take us to Earth, to show us what humans were like, we jumped at the chance. We would have to go in disguise, he told us: if humans saw what we really looked like, most of them would run away screaming and then send for people with guns to come and kill us. He said this in a very matter-of-fact way. It was all rather thrilling. Yes, we would disguise ourselves as humans and visit this ridiculous species. And we would go at the most ridiculous time of year: Christmas.
Dad researched it all. He found a human family that was visiting relatives for Christmas and he kidnapped them (yes, it’s true: alien abductions do happen). The plan was to make ourselves look like them so that we could visit their relatives and experience a real human family Christmas. Dad explained how it would work.
‘I’ve told you already how stupid humans are,’ he sniggered. ‘Their powers of perception are virtually non-existent. We will use a simple illusion to make ourselves look like these human beings. It’ll be us all along, but the humans will think it’s their relatives.’
He gave us each a hat to wear. My mum’s hat looked like a pair of reindeer antlers (I’d seen these in a book). My sister’s was green and pointy. Dad called it an ‘elf hat’. Dad himself wore one that was brown around the edges and white on top, with a tiny red bobble on top (he called it a ‘Christmas pudding hat’), and he gave me a bright red hat with white lining. I would never have admitted this to Dad, but as I put it on I got a tingle of excitement.
Dad explained that, as long as we were each wearing our hats, any humans who saw us would think we were one of them. ‘Don’t let the hat come off!’ he warned. ‘If you do, they’ll see us for the Baver we are. And then things will get complicated.’
And that was that. One cold, bright morning we arrived at the door of 12 Hawthorne Road. I was nervous, waiting for someone to come to the door. You see, the illusion didn’t work on us (as Dad explained, Baver have much better powers of perception) so to me, we all still looked like Baver. What if they opened the door and saw us for the aliens we were? I imagined them screaming and slamming the door in our faces.
But that didn’t happen. The door opened and we saw three smiley, red human faces and one serious, staring face (this was the baby). They all said ‘Merry Christmas’ and came to give us hugs. I’d never had a hug before, and it was scary to see these humans leaning in to give me one. But the actual hugs were surprisingly nice. And above all, I noticed the smells. At the time I didn’t know what they were, but now I know it was probably a mixture of perfume, chocolate, roast dinner and mulled wine. Sounds disgusting, but it was lovely at the time.
The boy, Harry, immediately took charge of me and Ekki-ekki-ekki-ekki-ekku-ekku-ekki (that’s my sister) and whisked us off to play with his new toys with him. He seemed so pleased to see us that I felt almost guilty for deceiving him. I knew that if my Christmas hat came off, he would see me for the Baver I was, and one thing was certain – if that happened, I wouldn’t be getting my turn with his new toy.
As we played, I could hear the adults talking in the background. Their conversation moved from the weather to Christmas songs to directions. I vaguely heard my dad describing which motorways you needed to go on to get to Scunthorpe, and was very impressed at his attention to detail: he really had researched humans well.
My mum was doing well too. She asked our hostess where she had bought her turkey, made an appropriate comment about how the dining table had been laid out and even held the baby for a brief time. This, I thought, was a dangerous move. Human babies are renowned for their tendency to grab things. If the baby took a shine to Mum’s hat, there would be screams all round. Thankfully, it didn’t happen.
At one point, while Harry was going to the toilet, Dad came in to check on us.
‘Isn’t it all so ridiculous,’ he whispered conspiratorially. ‘You’ll never believe what just happened. Brian just showed me the door wreath he made at an evening class! I mean, it’s a bunch of twigs stuck together in a circle! These humans really are stupid creatures!’
We smiled, but I felt bad. Just as Dad finished, Brian came in with a bowl full of small brown things. He popped one in his mouth, then held out the bowl to us. Uncertainly, I looked at Dad and then took one. I now know what it was: chocolate. At the time, I’d never tasted anything so delicious. Brian was smiling. He did seem a bit stupid, but all the same he was a nice person. I felt bad for laughing at him.
After a bit more playing, we were called to the table for Christmas lunch. It looked amazing. The table was covered in a bright red table cloth. Around the edge, places were laid for all of us. Beside each plate was a Christmas cracker. Climbing up beside me, Harry asked if I wanted to pull one. Dad had warned me about this. I knew that it was traditional to pull a Christmas cracker. I was expecting a small explosion, so I braced myself and was relieved when the cracker fell apart with barely a sound. Out of the cracker tumbled a paper hat, a small plastic toy and a bit of paper. Harry read out what it said:
‘Who delivers presents to cats? Santa paws!’
Everyone around the table made a groaning sound, but they all seemed happy enough. Soon, everyone had pulled their crackers and even more jokes were being read out.
‘What do you get if you cross Santa with a duck? A Christmas quacker!’
‘What is the best Christmas present in the world? A broken drum – you just can’t beat it!’
‘What do Santa’s little helpers learn at school? The elf-abet!’
I didn’t really understand any of the jokes, but it didn’t matter. It was nice to be sitting at the table, laughing with everybody else. And soon my plate was piled high with food. Harry’s mum, Sandra, helped me out by pouring gravy on my food. Brian passed me the sausages in bacon. It was all delicous, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.
In fact, the only thing that spoiled things a bit was the way Dad was behaving. At one point Brian held up his wine glass and said, ‘Merry Christmas everyone.’ Dad replied, ‘Yes, Merry Christmas everyone!’ but as he did so he looked over at me, and it was hard to believe that anyone could miss the enormous sneer on his face. As the meal went on, Dad’s taunting continued. Harry had just given a slightly out-of-tune rendition of a song about somebody who got sent lots of birds, jewellery and people for Christmas: I counted 364 gifts in total. I quite enjoyed the song, and when he finished we all clapped. But Dad took it one step further and started calling out, ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ and, again, looking over at us with a sneer on his face. This time, I saw Brian and Sandra looking at each other awkwardly. It seemed they’d noticed that Dad was being less than sincere in his applause. I didn’t like it. Harry had been nice to me: I didn’t want to laugh at him.
Mum was looking a bit worried too, and so was Ekki-ekki-ekki-ekki-ekku-ekku-ekki. A couple of times, Mum leaned over and pulled Dad’s hat more firmly onto his head, as he was moving around so much that it kept starting to slip off. One thing was clear: he wasn’t being careful enough. Soon enough I saw the reason. All the adults had been given glasses of wine. Mum had sipped at hers, but the glass was still pretty much full, whereas Dad’s was nearly empty. When Brian came around with another bottle, Mum said quietly, ‘Haven’t you had enough, dear?’ But Dad held out his glass for Brian to fill up. ‘Why not? ‘Tis the season to be jolly, after all. The most wonderful time of the year. A cause for celebration.’
It sounded like he was reciting something. Brian poured him another glass, and Dad quickly drank it, then belched loudly.
This was not going well.
After dinner we went into the living room to open presents. It did seem a bit silly to sit around a dead tree adorned with lights and plastic, passing around the gifts. But as my pile of presents grew bigger, I couldn’t help but get excited to find out what was in them. And all the time, Harry, Sandra and Brian kept smiling at me, and it felt nice. Even the baby laughed at one point, and I couldn’t help but laugh too.
We started to unwrap our presents, and I quickly got the hang of what was expected of me. Some of the presents were good ones: toys that seemed interesting, or nice things to eat. Others were less appealing: socks, or books that didn’t look very interesting. I learned that whatever I opened, I was to look surprised, then pleased, then say, ‘Thank you very much.’ Mum was doing it too, and so was Ekki-ekki-ekki-ekki-ekku-ekku-ekki.
But yet again, Dad was going over the top. ‘A scarf!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank you. It’s perfect! You know me so well, Brian and Sandra! What care you must have taken when choosing this for me. It must have taken hours to work out the perfect gift for me.’
I glanced at Mum nervously. She had a look of enormous fear on her face.
‘Darling,’ she said, ‘why don’t you sit —’
But Dad wasn’t listening. He was wrapping his new scarf round and round his neck, still talking loudly about what a perfect present it was. Everyone was watching. It was excruciating.
Mum stood up and touched Dad’s elbow. He turned suddenly, and then something awful happened. He didn’t mean to do it, I know, but somehow he knocked Mum over, and she fell into the Christmas tree, which came crashing down. I heard a scream, and at first I thought Mum was hurt. But then I realised what had happened. Her hat had come off! Harry and his family were seeing her for what she really was: a big, ugly, scary alien.
Seeing what had happened, Dad swiftly pulled off his hat too. Now there were two ugly aliens in Brian and Sandra’s living room, and the screams were even louder.
Dad looked at me and Ekki-ekki-ekki-ekki-ekku-ekku-ekki. ‘I think this is our cue to leave, kids,’ he laughed. He held out his hand for me to take.
For a brief moment, I didn’t move. I looked around me at the living room, at the Christmas tree on the floor, at the screwed-up wrapping paper everywhere, the Christmas cards, the toys, the games, the chocolates. I didn’t want to go.
But a second later, I realised I had no choice. I allowed myself to be whisked out into the street and we made our getaway.
I have no idea what happened to that family. I can’t imagine that anybody would have believed them if they tried to explain what had happened. Perhaps they just blocked the whole thing from their minds, as humans are prone to do. Maybe they forgot the whole thing.
But I didn’t. I didn’t forget a thing. It had been my first Christmas – and, as I told you right at the beginning, my worst Christmas. I never forgot the sneering way my Dad mocked everybody at the table, or the looks of terror on the faces of Harry and his family when they saw my mum and dad for what they really were. I never forgot, and I never really forgave my dad either. He was the cleverest person I knew, but I realised that day that he was also the meanest.
So I remembered all the horrible things that happened that day. But I also remembered all the nice things: all the food, and singing, and playing, and laughing. I remembered all of it, and I took those memories back home with me. And now I’m an adult, I can proudly say that I know a thing or two about humans, too. I still live on Amzabar-Kaywar, but I make occasional visits to Earth with my own family, and I’m pleased to say that I have never once been detected for the Baver I really am. We’ve experienced many of the silly things humans do: from weddings to barbecues to country dancing to paintballing to rollercoasters to waterskiing. They’re all silly, and all fun. But the silliest of all – and, for me, the most fun of all – is Christmas.
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