Christmas
Christmas Past; Sydney
In Sydney from upstairs, we could see Wedding Cake Island. The small island in Coogee Bay is a low clump of rocks with frothy water all over it. We loved to watch him swim across the bay as he always did on Christmas morning. His slow strokes sure as clockwork.
With the girls, I watched for any sign of sharks, knowing there was nothing to be done if one should arrive, but he always came back to us shaking himself at the water’s edge like a big dog. The only sharks are at work, he would say, and they wear suits. The girls were enthralled and mystified. Could this be true? The idea of risk was in her mind for all things; the idea like a safe room to retreat to.
She grew to love Sydney. It was like meeting another member of the family. Familiar but different, its beauty always apparent. Place and weather. This was where she first beheld regular rain, often a bit more than she could manage. It was intoxicating and reliable, days of it. Who knew how much of it was to come?
Present; Melbourne
Arctic blasts today and needles of rain in small dense pockets. Has summer skipped us this year again? No, it might come back, because now the sun lies on the outdoor table like a golden cat ready to slip away at any moment.
We bought a real Christmas tree in a pot this year because after all those years of assembling the big fake one, I was suddenly sick of it. Besides, the old one was down quite a few branches, misplaced over the decades. This new one is not very big and once you put the twinkling lights on, you’re there.
This year we will be having the dinner on Christmas eve so the kids’ partners can go to their own parents. We’re planning on an outdoor feast, but the weather is always in on the game in Melbourne and the tree is looking a bit unwell.
Deep Past; Footscray
Christmas brings memories with it, and some are indelible as tattoos.
Money was in short supply when I was a child, largely because my father was a gambler and a drinker. He was up against it. And so were we.
Though I remember one year when Dad said that Father Christmas might not come this year because he was very busy and there were lots of other children in the world who needed him. Expectations plummeted and we were strangely silent. But presents were never a big deal. One year one of us got an early Christmas present of a pair of thongs after standing on a bee. Cheap and cheerful. For Christmas dinner we had a roast chicken to share between two adults and three kids. Now we’d have a roast free-range chook for lunch on a Saturday. People just seemed to eat less then.
On the big day we always got up before the crack of dawn and did so again on the minus Santa day, regardless of reports about him showing up. We entered the dim lounge room with our hope flags flying and were greeted with a blow-up kids’ plastic pool, the floor of it strewn with lollies. We entered the room on our own and settled immediately into the lolly pit. We asked for no permissions. Strange how some memories are stronger than others, how the dream-like nature settles over them.
Three years ago; Future Rising
It must have been the last covid-free Christmas, when I ended up in the Emergency room on Christmas morning having unsuccessfully tried to use a mandolin slicer on a potato and go my thumb instead. I was meant to be making potatoes gratin. We arrived at the hospital at around 11 in the morning, the doctor well before the usual crush of people having crashes on new scooters and other toys. He fixed the thumb, and we headed home with him saying at the door, that the slicers should be banned. I agreed. We got home and lunch was ready.
Just another day when you try too hard, and you put too much meaning into it, if you do that, you’ll never get it right. In the future when I am wise, I’ll stick to pavlovas.
Deborah Forster is the Melbourne journalist and author behind the Sunday Age column ‘This Life’. This is a revisiting of that column.