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He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life character. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to a further glass. At family parties, he’s the one chatting about the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.

We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.

The Day Progressed

The morning rolled on but the stories were not coming as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

Upon our arrival, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.

Cheerful nurses, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

After our time at the hospital concluded, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and played something even dafter, such as a local version of the board game.

It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – was Christmas effectively over for us?

The Aftermath and the Story

Even though he ultimately healed, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, 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 am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year has done no damage to my pride. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.