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This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life personality. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person discussing the latest scandal to befall a member of parliament, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.

We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.

The Day Progressed

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

Therefore, before I could even placed a party hat on my head, we resolved to drive him to the emergency room.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

Upon our arrival, his state had progressed from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of institutional meals and air filled the air.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and holiday television. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

The hour was already advanced, and snow was falling, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?

The Aftermath and the Story

While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.