Christmas 2024.
I’m not sure about Christmas. I know there is an unwritten scale that extends from the super tinsel celebrators to the Christmas deniers. And there’s the very anxious and the totally ambivalent. Somewhere in I am on that scale. Can’t really express why I find it so conflicting other than the world becomes a strange place in which the faux bon homie makes us all appear to be united in the celebration of a child’s birth millennia ago. We tinsel over the cracks and decorate homes and streetscapes as a symbol of this good will. Now I know that is making me sound borderline curmudgeon-like but I’m not at all. I can’t sing Silent Night without bawling (not just because I can’t sing very well but I am moved by the imagery of the story).
I love making the Christmas pudding and the home-made jam gifts. I get enormous pleasure wrapping presents and making some kind of effort to get a few twinkling lights going. I even love creating a menu for my family on the big day…and then bringing it to fruition with varying degrees of success. Sometimes we have more family to gather, at other times it’s just me and the significant other. We have on some years ago the mega gathering but that was when we had parents, and we lived closer to the wider group of relatives. Now it’s quieter, the need to do the rounds dropping off gifts and imbibing the ubiquitous drink is no longer part of the day. The day still involves food and drink and way too much wrapping paper but there is a stillness, a peaceful time for reflection on the Christmases past. (Sounding a little Dickensian here)
The memories of Christmas past range from special to ridiculous. One thing from childhood stands out as a special memory. Every year our grandfather, Tom, would fill a jar with coins from his market garden business. Usually it was just one and two cent pieces, the occasional five cent and the very rare 10 cent coin. My brother and I would have the most marvellous time carefully counting the monetary bounty into two separate and fully equal piles. The only conundrum was if we got to the end of the jar and a spare coin of some denomination could not be split. Usually solved by some recalculation of the numbers or by Mum finding an equivalent value coin. The splitting of the wealth was followed by a discussion of what might be purchased with such unrivalled prosperity. (It was probably only $5 each but we felt like kings).
Having our own children and for several years sharing Christmas with their grandparents were joyful times. Nothing like a small human to bring the whole shindig together. Toys and games that had to played with immediately adding to the chaos of trying to roast a turkey and boil a pudding. Usually when it was 30 degrees or more. The conga line of washing up before the days of the dishwasher also a great feature of Christmases past. A collective production line of washers and dryers had an element of group cohesion. The eventful day when the mother-in-law’s Crown Devon dinner set somehow was stacked in a wonky tower that eventually crashed into a pile of porcelain dust a not so good memory.
More often than not those who were not a part of the clean up team would find a place to recline and doze in response to over full bellies and too much wine. The thought of food at any point in the next 24 hours seemed unlikely and yet within hours of the siestas someone would want a sandwich, a slice of ham or the last bit of the trifle (I’ll just eat it out of the serving bowl…save the washing up!)
There were Christmases overseas. One in Limerick, Ireland where we had to muscle our way into a hotel restaurant that was only for guests of that establishment. We played the no room at the inn card and followed up with the sad children without a Christmas meal manipulation to find a seat at the table. We didn’t give gifts that year as we were travelling light but wrote on pieces of paper the gifts we would like to have given each other. Some were things but others were more of a metaphysical nature, and it felt pretty special. The snow helped make it all the more magical.
Time flies. It only seemed like the other day that we were engulfed in smoke and flames, and then separated from loved ones by Covid and border closures. Those were truly stressful Christmases. Less stressful are the inevitable family rivalries that involve mastering the intricacies of Scrabble, Articulate, Trivial Pursuit and Balderdash. With constant reminders that none of the above are a contact sport.
The season makes me nostalgic for the simpler times when belief was easy. A little sad about the people who are no longer here to share it with us, overwhelmed by the expectation of it, frustrated by the absurd materialism, happy to be with those I love, traumatised by the last visit to the supermarket and weary by the end of it.
wish we could all be less and at the same time more. Less concerned about the things of Christmas and more committed to the true meaning of the season of goodwill.
So in a world where Christmas is side by side with war, poverty, hardship and violence it might be hard to find the joy but I hope you can. I wish for you all a time of calm reflection, the simple joy of being with people you care about and perhaps the opportunity to extend the graciousness and congeniality of Christmas to the year ahead. And as a last resort may you be the one to eat the last of the trifle out of the bowl to save the washing up.
Merry Christmas. X
Comments