I know this is not necessarily the normative view of Christmas. But it isn’t my favourite holiday.
Don’t get me wrong, I like being surrounded by my nearest and dearest, eating too much and hoping someone else will pick up all the paper and packaging once the pressies have been opened. I’m not against a day spent lying semi-comatose on the sofa wondering if I can be bothered to drag my bones to the fridge for another wine.
But I’m not necessarily into the whole catering to the masses. Or catering at all…
In fact, the mere thought makes me feel ill. Worse than that extra mince pie I just stuffed into my mouth. (Incidentally, my cheeks have started to resemble those of a hamster, and that’s without food).
The joy of living Down Under is that it’s never my turn to host the rest of the fam. There’s no drama about which side of the family gets Christmas Day and how quickly you need to recover to get to the next venue for Boxing Day.
It’s just a very bijou gathering of 5 humans and 3 furs.
So I wasn’t really looking for an uninvited house guest this year.
Tales of the Unexpected
Do you remember Tales of the Unexpected from what must be a thousand years ago?
Well, who needs late night TV nowadays when we’ve been living the unexpected since 2020?
Anyhoo, baby boy went out snogging a bird and came back with an unexpected early Christmas gift.
Meaning a Christmas featuring 5 humans in one room was off the menu:
- One trapped over the border.
- One living in a rental, so unable to return to the city. Except to retrieve 2 furs so they could still go out walking. Domiciled in a city townhouse with no garden is not the optimal arrangement for energetic woofers.
- One harbouring the dreaded Omicrom germ, locked down in his bedroom.
And then there were two…
Which left two for Christmas lunch, with the addition of the remaining fur.
As me and the fur like prawns – much to the disgust of the remainder of the fam – we had our first Christmas of the Aussie classic “prawns on the barby” (cooked in a pan, because I couldn’t be bothered).
The Queen’s speech was replaced by watching for daughter number one’s covid test result pinging through on the text. Another gift of positivity!
I think the highlight was this text being immediately followed by a text announcing she and I were a close contact of her brother. Timing nailed!
Together apart
And then a round of FaceTime and Zoom calls with the extended fam. The stranded fam, the parentals & sis, and cousins galore all connected via the magic of technology. I think I spoke to more people than I would have under normal circumstances, even if the tech wasn’t designed for about 20 talkative people huddled around 4 screens, it was still fun to see so many faces. So thank you covid!
And for my next trick
Boxing Day started with the traditional breakfast of left over mince pies and cream, followed by an early dash to a swabbing station to try and dodge the queues.
Doesn’t look like there’ll be a dash to the country for New Year. All farming updates coming from the balcony garden.