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Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life figure. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. At family parties, he would be the one discussing the latest scandal to catch up with a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.

We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, trying to cope, but appearing more and more unwell.

The Day Progressed

The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

So, before I’d so much as put on a festive hat, my mother and I made the choice to get him to the hospital.

The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

By the time we got there, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the distinctive odor of hospital food and wind permeated the space.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety in every direction, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.

Cheerful nurses, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so particular to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

When visiting hours were over, we returned home to cold bread sauce and Christmas telly. We viewed something silly 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 having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?

Recovery and Retrospection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed DVT. And, although that holiday does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, I couldn’t possibly comment, but its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.