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Our family friend has always been a truly outsized personality. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person chatting about the latest scandal to catch up with a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.

It was common for us to pass Christmas morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. But, one Christmas, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, holding a drink in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. So, here he was back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.

The Morning Rolled On

The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, 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 considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.

Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

When visiting hours were over, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and Christmas telly. We saw a lighthearted program 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 snow was falling, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?

Recovery and Retrospection

While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed DVT. And, even if that particular Christmas is not my most cherished memory, 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. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.