Christmas Eve. I'm waiting at the arrivals gate at Heathrow Terminal 5. It's like watching a long-playing loop of the opening and closing scenes of Love Actually. Everyone here is here to meet some friend or family member flying in for Christmas. There are no business folk looking impatiently for the car sent to pick them up, or weary backpackers arriving home at the end of a world tour. Everyone just glancing anxiously between the two opposite sets of doors that arrivees come through, waiting for the person whose appearance is going to make their face light up with pleasure. I have to wait an hour and a half for my kids to come out, in which time I've grown slightly blasé about cute little toddlers rushing forward to hug their delighted grandparents. Once or twice - sweet. After that, we're in sickly John Lewis Christmas advert territory.
And then finally my children emerge and I know once again what it is I miss about them the most. It's the physicality of seeing them in the flesh, holding them, listening to their chatter. The pleasure I get from just seeing my increasingly lovely and sophisticated daughter, from inhaling the smell of my son's hair, from hugging my youngest tight to my chest.
It's all I want for Christmas
And then finally my children emerge and I know once again what it is I miss about them the most. It's the physicality of seeing them in the flesh, holding them, listening to their chatter. The pleasure I get from just seeing my increasingly lovely and sophisticated daughter, from inhaling the smell of my son's hair, from hugging my youngest tight to my chest.
It's all I want for Christmas
