Christmas Eve has always been a relatively reflective time for me. Whether it’s the memory of my first time going to midnight mass or the earlier times, when I’d spend all night secretly asking Father Christmas for a kiss from whichever girl I had a crush on at the time… there’s always going to be a memory from way back when.

My earliest Christmas Eve memory is from when I was about seven or eight. I remember it specifically because I slept with my head out of the covers, and because I actually got a fair amount of sleep just before Christmas – a nigh-on impossible thing for a child.

Up until my late teens, I slept with my whole body – including my head – covered by the duvet. Anything else and I would feel vulnerable, or nervous, or scared… ever since I noticed how the rainbows on my Care Bears wallpaper made a scary face if you looked at them for too long, I felt I had to shield myself from the world. I didn’t even notice until the age of about five that it was possible to close one’s eyes without screwing them tightly together. The fact that I was able to go to sleep at all was a miracle. Doing so without problems on Christmas night was completely unheard of. And with my head out of the covers? Positively Herculean.

The reason I’m talking about this on my sex blog is because I find it difficult to relate Christmas to sex. I’m aware that there are plenty of people who do; it just doesn’t really occur to me. I don’t think, or I don’t remember, ever having had sex at Christmas. I’ve brought myself to orgasm all of once on the big day itself. I’m not really one to ask for, give, or receive sex toys as a gift, nor does anyone ever buy me porn.

Even though I haven’t lived with my parents now for years, whereas living with them made enjoying my sexuality risky, it still doesn’t occur to me to be at all sexy over Christmas. Christmas is for Jesus Christ, Father Christmas and Batman Returns. There are even some difficult bits related to it – once ending up with me in the mental health unit of the local hospital. What with everything going on, there genuinely doesn’t appear to be time for sex.

So if anyone has an explanation as to why I’ve spent the entire week constantly thinking about it, that’s be good. Cheers.