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He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life character. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to a further glass. During family gatherings, he would be the one chatting about the latest scandal to befall a member of parliament, or regaling us with tales of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players during the last four decades.

Frequently, we would share the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, with a glass of whisky in hand, his luggage in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, trying to cope, but appearing more and more unwell.

The Morning Rolled On

The hours went by, however, the anecdotes weren’t flowing as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

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

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

A Deteriorating Condition

When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. One could see valiant efforts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, even with the pervasive depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables.

Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

Once the permitted time ended, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

The hour was already advanced, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?

Recovery and Retrospection

Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung 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 involves a degree of exaggeration, I couldn’t possibly comment, but the story’s yearly repetition 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”.