My family went to the snow once when I was 8. We didn’t actually get as far as the snowfields, but we got to see it thick on the ground. We got out of the car and experimented in the snow for about half an hour, before our woolly gloves and my fabric (non-waterproof) sneakers became drenched. I remember spending the next 3 hours in the car on the way home in intense pain as my feet thawed out.
Ten years later, I stayed at a friends’ house in the Blue Mountains on a very rare night when it snowed. This time it didn’t blanket the ground, but I did get to see flakes float down for at least an hour.
Images and depictions of Christmas are always in amongst these magical white laced Winter scenes, with cosy fireplaces and warm woolly clothes… Scenes that are alien to me.
I’m sure most of you would think of a hot Summertime Christmas as an incredibly peculiar idea, but I find it hard to imagine it any other way! Let me paint you a picture…
Most people get a week or 2 holidays from work around Christmas, schoolkids get 6 weeks. Each year Mr You and I drive 10 hours North to the small seaside fishing town where his family are. His parents live about 5 minutes up the mouth of the river from the coast. A small dirt road leads you to the house, river out the front, prawn farm ponds to the side and behind with fields of sugarcane framing the rest, a long way from anyone else.
The days leading up to Christmas are lazy. We wake up to bright sunlight and the sounds of cicadas and birds. I almost always go for a quiet relaxing swim in the pool as soon as I get out of bed before the sun is too hot. We sit around eating breakfast at the table on the wide timber veranda (with corrugated iron bullnose roof) that runs the entire way around the house; sunglasses on, bare feet, and still wearing our damp swimmers with a towel around our waist.
Relatives arrive from distant places throughout the day, unpack, and start to unwind. The days are slow and quiet as we read, snooze, play, and help prepare for Christmas day. In the evenings each person will wonder on down to the jetty with a cold beer or glass of wine, and we gather to watch the sunset across the river, have a chat and a laugh, there’s always one person fishing, and sometimes a pod a dolphins will swim right past us.
We eat dinner out on the veranda too, and as the sky darkens we watch the solar lights twinkle in the trees and fruit-bats fly overhead, hear the green tree frogs build into a chorus of croaking, and get the occasional whiff of a smouldering mozzie coil from beneath the table. Eventually we go to bed with the fans on, the doors and windows open, and the flyscreens shut tight.
On Christmas morning we get dressed in bright summery clothes as the kids run around and play with their Santa presents. We gather with all of the relatives for a traditional breakfast of barbequed ham and eggs on toast, with a line of mobile phones and digital camera’s resting up the centre of the table. Christmas carols playing in the background.
Next it’s into the lounge room as we form a giant circle around the Christmas tree to tackle the mountain of gifts underneath. The kids almost always get inflatable pool toys from someone, and as some people gather to scrunch the discarded wrapping paper into bags, others turn blue trying to blow up the pool pony or lilo.
People come and go as they try on their new clothes, or search for batteries for the kids toys. We check out each others gifts more carefully, as lollies, fruitcake and champaign are already being offered around. More people arrive before lunch, old family friends who come for Christmas every year. All up there’s over 20 people, but because most of the day is spent outside, space is never an issue. The table is set and lunch is served.
Sometimes Christmas lunch is hot turkey with roast veggies, gravy and cranberry sauce, but remember we’re in the breeze of a few fans and it’s hot outside. Mostly it’s a freshly carved cold ham, a mountain of prawns and a multitude of salads. We crack our bon-bons, exchange old jokes, and we tease that the people who don’t wear the paper hats have to wash-up. Deserts can vary greatly. From the traditional pudding with custard, to pavlova with fruit, always at least 4 or 5 to choose from and always too much.
The afternoon is lazy but good fun as we sit around in the shade and the find the breeze outside. We laugh and joke, drink and digest copious amounts of food. Later we’ll go for a swim or have a snooze. Then when the sun drops a bit and the afternoon sea breeze sets in, it’s an Australian Christmas tradition to play backyard cricket with a tennis ball and an esky as the wicket.
The mood is still jolly at night. Photo’s are taken, some will group together to play a board game, others will take a stroll, and there’s always someone who gets pushed in the pool and initiates a night pool frolic. The snacking on various food and leftovers continues. Everyone stays up late to stretch the day out for as long as possible, because it’s only once a year (or longer) that everyone comes together like this, it’s rare and special and the appreciation is abundant.
That’s our Christmas. I imagine there are lots of things that are different from yours, but overall I bet it’s pretty similar. I hope yours was wonderful.
I’d forgotten how regularly I use “noony noony noon…” in my everyday vocab. It’s my own personal hold music. It started at a young age, and was introduced to me by the typewriter guy on Sesame Street. (Funnily I only just learned that his name is Guy Kitbash).
Delighted, I patted each one of them and picked out a particularly wiley one for my very own. My new ‘Albany Woollybush’ has rounded off a humble garden for the senses:
Beth at Sunberst
Matthew at Ghostco
Danny Gregory
The Garden
Peter Callesen
