Stories: Christmas
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Most memorable Christmas?
As a 17 year old on exchange in Sri Lanka... staying with a Catholic family. Went carolling to old people's homes with a group of Buddhist and Christian students (don't ever get put into an old people's home in Sri Lanka...) Oh, and also carolling with us was the Christian daughter of our Muslim neighbour.... Then spent 3 hours at midnight mass at the local Catholic Church, 42 degrees Celsius, dressed in a ball dress and high heels... Capacity of 400 - about 3,000 Catholics crammed in...
Walked home in high heels on the mud road, past beggars and stray cows at 3am in the middle of civil unrest (fortunately accompanied by my rugby-playing host brother)... only to open presents. Finally asleep at 4am, to be awoken at 5am on actual Christmas day by the chanting from the local Buddhist temple...'buddhyang saranang gachaaami'.
Then spent Christmas day giving out pieces of Christmas cake and stollen to our Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim neighbours (they returned the favour during their religious festivals...). Fortunately, Sri lanka has more public holidays than any other country in the world - including all the major religious days for Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims - so Christmas day was actually a holiday - even at my Buddhist High School.
Funny, although I remember opening the presents - I can't remember anything I was given, not even in my parcel from home...
(Although I do remember the baked beans, chocolate muesli bars and Easter Eggs sent at Easter time, via the New Zealand cricket team - which I fortunately picked up from their hotel the day before a massive bomb blast sent the country into disarray and the New Zealanders on their way home...)
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OK, so here's one from when I was fourteen (33 years ago).
uh oh - my son tells a similar story.....I hope he's not sharing it with the world in 33 years time...
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I actually blogged one memorable Christmas abroad in my Grandpa post last year, but there were others.
Indeed, I had some excellent Christmases in London (and one in Cornwall) with other far-from-home Kiwis. When you're away, your friends are your family, although there were always people who didn't cope with the Christmas thing well.
These days, Christmas Day is just our household and we really like that -- especially when we hear horror stories from people who have to go into stressful extended-family situations.
We'll all open the presents, then have something nice for breakfast, something really nice for lunch (which for Dad includes chardonnay) and something quick for dinner, after which Dad has a Cuban cigar on the deck while he listens to his favourite music and looks at the sky. In between, lots of lazing around and playing outside. It's cool.
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The best Christmas I ever had was in Aegean Turkey (yes Turkey for Xmas - groan) at a place called Fethiye.
Myself and a few other itinerant travellers had managed to hire one of the local gulets (a type of yacht) for a week and the skipper took us cruising around all the local islands. Gin was about $2 a bottle and the tonic was dirt cheap too. Life consisted of lying lazily on the deck G&T in hand watching the world slip by.
Christmas Eve was spent anchored of St Nicholas Island somewhere near Cleopatra's Baths. For Xmas lunch the skipper had laid in roast turkey and the works. He even dressed as Santa and handed out presents. It was awesome.
Mind you there was a lot of drinking later on and things did degenerate a little and I think there may have been photos that really should never see the light of day
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My family Christmas is always just Mum, Dad and my bro if he's in the country. I miss the bigger, rowdier Christmases of my childhood, but since my aunts and uncles became grandparents, the family tree has shifted. So sometimes, just to liven things up, I'd would tune in to my bro's police radio scanner (nerd!) and listen to all the domestic callouts. If I can't have a drunk Uncle Gary ruining Christmas, I can at least live vicariously through someone else's.
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Oh I like that. Where do you get police radio scanners from? That'd liven the show up, for sure.
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It's the out-of-kilter Christmases you remember.
One Christmas in Fiji.
I'm in my late teens, travelling alone and staying with a local family in a rural area. Christmas dinner is big black mud crabs, obtained live the day before and tied to the doorhandle with a piece of string. They scrabble against the door all night. They're right next to my sleeping area and make me too nervous to sleep. Come lunch time, all I want to eat is dalo and daruka (vegetables), but I choke down a piece of crab to be polite. I feel a long way from home.Four Christmases in Amsterdam.
The Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas on December 5, so Christmas Day is a family, religious occasion. The English and American ex-pats go home for Christmas, but the Far-Flung Ex-Pats must turn to each other for Christmas Day company.Year 1. The dear old Minister of the English Reform Church in the Begijnhof invites us to Christmas dinner. The church is staffed from the Church of Scotland so we have a traditional Presbyterian Christmas at the Manse. Quite jolly, with freesias to harbinge spring.
Year 2. Fred and Marcia, newlyweds, invite us. A long journey through snow. Marcia's inexperience in the kitchen shows, as she runs out of food and has to open a tin. Fred spends the whole time talking about his new purchases. Six months later he is done for embezzlement.
Year 3. My sister arrives from London with her latest boyfriend, staying in the attic storage space of our third floor, walk up, one-room flat, loo on the landing and no bathroom. We cobble together a New Zealand style Christmas dinner with no oven, just three gas rings. Boyfriend gives us all holy medals for Christmas. When he has gone back to Ireland, I set mine free in a bus shelter.
Year 4. Chic and Ans, the West Indian musician and German scientist odd couple, join us for a hot curry lunch. Those gas rings again. A rather noisy time is had by all. Chic died last year. Ans is long vanished.
FF to this year. We're hosting again, and what do you know, our new abode (a work in progress) has no working oven. Back to the gas rings. The new kitchen (French Provincial, costing a dauphin's ransom) is due to arrive in the third week in January. So it's an informal Kiwi pot luck buffet with crowds of bickering rellies, on home turf. We're looking forward to the shambles.
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the church is staffed from the Church of Scotland so we have a traditional Presbyterian Christmas at the Manse. Quite jolly,
So. Not a traditional Presbyterian Christmas then.
That's slightly tongue in cheek, although I recall an inter-denominational Christmas church service as a teenager with the Methodists, Presbyterians and Anglicans ...the Anglican vicar made some crack about being able to pick the Presbyterians in the congregation because they were the ones with the solemn faces.
No one laughed.
[Declaration: I was brought up Presbyterian]
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Where do you get police radio scanners from?
Dick Smith have a large selection, though they are quite pricey. Maybe Santa will bring you one?
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London. I forgot about that year until reading these stories. I would tell the lengthy tale of my London Christmas with friends... but I don't actually remember much of it. We were drunk by 10am. Other helpful substances were ingested. I seem to remember a giant feast for about twenty people, which I was unable to appreciate fully. Everyone played dressups. Some unwise photos were taken: some of them are still hanging on my wall at home. My friend from Texas became intimately acquainted with the stinging nettle in the back garden, and still speaks of it in bitterly reverent tones. After twelve hours we collapsed, exhausted, in various places. We all spent Boxing Day sitting fragilely on a couch with giant spliffs and a black and white TV. (I think we watched Antiques Roadshow and Mary Poppins, which is probably the last movie anyone needs to see in black and white.)
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The only unnerving thing was the nun with guitar sitting a few rows back from me
A Flying Nun musician! (er, I'll get me coat...).
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Goodness, you are a well-travelled bunch. Erm, also, Heather and Emma: are either of you going to follow up with more detail on the 'catastrophically hirsute' (heh) and cat-shooting stories? You're leaving me hanging here. I can't be the only one who wants to know more. I need eyebrow-singeing and cat-injuring context, dammit.
Robyn, I actually do have a periodically drunk Uncle Gary. Is Gary the go-to name for uncles or something?
(I was going to make some sort of joke involving 'dominique-nique-nique', but Grant's was infinitely funnier. No one remembers the Singing Nun anyway.)
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Robyn, I actually do have a periodically drunk Uncle Gary. Is Gary the go-to name for uncles or something?
Um, well, it is in my world. A friend and I used to do this "Uncle Gary and his mail-order bride" thing, but the less said about that the better.
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A Flying Nun musician! (er, I'll get me coat...).
I've changed my mind. Russell can stay. Clearly Grant is the weakest link.
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<quote>Mary Poppins, which is probably the last movie anyone needs to see in black and white.),/quote>
Although the perfect movie for watching with giant spliffs!
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I need eyebrow-singeing and cat-injuring context, dammit.
I tried to turn this into an entertaining story in my head, but in fact my dad was drunk, my cat was digging in his veggie patch, so he shot it. Frankie did survive: he was one of those kick-arse ginger toms that are built like Sherman tanks, and it was only a .22.
There was an amusing story about the time all the piglets escaped just before my mum had to pick my dad up from rehab, but I'm concerned about how much I'm starting to sound like a redneck. Almost as much as Danielle.
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A christmas in Wales, early 1990’s - We’ve journeyed to Risca (small town South Wales) from our Westbourne Grove flat to share our first Christmas with our (seldom seen or heard from but fondly remembered) Uncle and Aunt in some 25 odd years.
Its bloody freezing. We are put up in our Aunts elderly Mums place (she has decamped to somewhere in England for the break). There is literally no heating in the house (we can’t imagine how an 80 year old gets by during a winter like this) so we sleep wearing every single item of clothing we have, watching our icy breath illuminate the dark room (although sadly, this extreme cold-snap has not extended as far as providing a white Christmas, mores the pity).
Christmas Eve and we are collected in an old Hillman and taken to the local pub for a drink. Everyone there seems to know each other or is related in some way (entire generations of family are dressed for pulling). Our ‘out-of-town-ness’ is obvious, but we are treated like royalty (and absolutely forbidden to buy a drink) and passed from group to group like mascots. There are a few kiwis there – rugby players who are plying their trade in the Valleys and now have Welsh families, who seemed pleased to make a connection with home, no matter how slight.
It’s a great night. The pub feels like a (collectively inebriated) real community, the songs start flowing, some of the contemporaries of our parents roll out funny stories of Mum and Dad (which I loved hearing), everyone’s non-Englishness is duly celebrated, and the craic is flowing thick and fast. It may be a stereotype about the Welsh being singers, but there is a lot of truth to it. We embarrass ourselves by contributing a pretty lame Pokarekareana compared to the full-throttle Tom Jones numbers going on.
The next morning we defrost ourselves in the shower, and head to our Uncles place for Christmas lunch. Some of the extended family is there in the morning to swap presents before heading off to other places.
The elders are pleased to see us and their hospitality is incredibly generous, but the cousins our own age seem to have zero interest in getting to know us. One asks us why we are here, as in, ‘why aren’t you back in NZ having Christmas with your Mam?’ Not sure what to say to that one, I guess the antipodean tradition of the OE isn’t universal. Another asks half-heartedly about London, having never made the 2-hour train ride in his life and seemingly with little interest in ever doing so.
Meanwhile, our Aunt has been slaving away in the kitchen all morning, stoicly refusing all offers of help. Finally, we get the summons, and we troop into the dining room for the big traditional Christmas lunch. Aunt starts to hand food through the servery window (and then spends the remainder of lunch on her own in the kitchen – singing out ‘I’m alright love’ every time we enquire as to what is happening out there).
My Uncle (who is not a small man) rips through his ham and turkey in about 5 minutes and immediately retires to his lazy-boy recliner to watch Morecambe & Wise re-runs. The kids all scram as soon as Dad leaves the table. Before we know it, we are literally the only ones left at the dinner table, crackers uncracked, toasts untoasted. Very strange.
We finish our lunch – a little perplexed – and then track down the family sitting contentedly in front of the telly in the front room.
The next day it’s back to the relatively understandable world of West London (just a bit more informed as to the different nuances of Christmas).
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A christmas in Wales
And so I hear the rest of the story in the dulcet tones of Dylan Thomas...
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Organ Morgan........
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I need eyebrow-singeing and cat-injuring context, dammit.
The reality isn't quite as intriguing as the one-liner. My uncle-in-law has these astonishingly long eyebrows (think Imperial moustache), and was lighting his pipe when a freak match-flare ignited them. He didn't actually notice; just stood there, stunned, wondering why his wife was yelping & smacking him on the forehead.
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There's never a camera ready when you need it, is there?
Anyone tasked with buying Christmas presents for young girls might like to muse on this:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/ehrenreich -
but the cousins our own age seem to have zero interest in getting to know us. One asks us why we are here, as in, ‘why aren’t you back in NZ having Christmas with your Mam?
Phillip's crew? Had a similar experience - they were all summonsed to drinks to meet us & none of them said a word...
and as for visiting London, I don't think many of them had been to cardiff even!
And Phillip cooked us a beef roast garnished with half a pig of bacon one morning for breakfast. Xmas dinner must have been lush.
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I'm concerned about how much I'm starting to sound like a redneck. Almost as much as Danielle.
Confusion: you're almost as concerned as I am, or you sound like almost as much of a redneck as me?
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Confusion: you're almost as concerned as I am, or you sound like almost as much of a redneck as me?
Yes?
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Hmmm Christmas…typically I have only just noticed its here. I am kind of hoping that at some point offspring will change my view of Christmas…we’ll see. Working in the license trade for too long changes the way you see things.
Peace on earth 1.
My father and I spent the day arguing I’m drunk, he’s barely conscious. We have guests. I’m laying the table, I drop a fork, he tells me to wash it, I reply “you f*****g wash it”. The guests have to restrain us both and someone else washes the fork. We sit to eat, I’m serving my father, doing it silver style, I twitch, purely by accident and cover him in overdone, quite mobile greens. He eyeballs me, I eyeball him and the room elects not to take any further breaths for the time being. Then I see what I think is the vaguest crinkle next to his recently greened eye. We both look to either side and I really can’t remember who started it. A smile, a chuckle, a giggle and then peals of tear busting, asthmatic provoking laughter; the spirit of Christmas brings peace for another day.
Peace on earth 2.
Still not over the breakdown of a 4 year relationship, feeling quite sorry for myself, I elected not to celebrate Christmas. I was nursing an extraordinary hangover having passed out at 7pm the day before. The house was freezing and I could not be bothered to connect up the new gas bottle, I crawled into bed instead. The phone rang three times; I decided not to be in. Then this awful banging on the door “Saes ! we know you’re in there - John and Della are coming to collect you in half an hour !”. John and Della owned a farm over the hill, Della had been my tutor at Uni, they are both the most decent committed Christians I know and I am about as atheist as they come. Failing to contact me by phone, they in that very North Wales way checked with my neighbours and got them to alert me instead. People like me don’t deserve friends like that. I don’t remember the meal or much of the following days. I do remember standing in an empty slate quarry with five companions singing Hymns and carols for all my voice, and what could be taken for a soul was worth. I can neither describe nor understand the peace that moment brought me.
A gift from my partner.
My partner gets my need for solitude which is a great comfort to me. One Christmas shortly after we first got together, we finished work on the evening of the 23rd, packed gear and drove from Sheffield to the northern highlands of Scotland. Late afternoon met our arrival at the bottom of a small range of Corbett’s and Munro’s I’d recce’d the year before. We did a night tramp for the first part, pitching out about two thirds of the way from the top of this particular peak. Christmas day from the camp looked a bit misty and not too bright, by eleven it had cleared just enough for us to photograph the wreck of a WW2 Wellington bomber. We could just see the peak and decided to have a go with what looked like quite a long zigzag route. As the ascent progressed the Sun came out and we went really fast, no words, just the crunch of snow and us. They call it a flow state and it was one of the most complete moments of my life. At the top I could see the range, the sea, my partner, two sets of tracks and not another living soul. Not the highest peak I’ve ever done and by no means the most difficult or indeed the most spectacular scenery, but it was mine. Only half the chocolate was mine though. It became clear at the peak that my partner was getting very cold very fast; with old gear not really up to the job, I cracked out my dry set and my partner doubled up layers. We set off downhill quite fast and made quite a wise decision at camp deciding to continue the walk off. I put my partner in the bothybag with a hot pack and pitched up. As we walked off a blizzard followed us all the way down to the tree line where we camped briefly and then carried on the then thick snow. Sat finally in a snowbound car I realised my partner who really hadn’t enjoyed the show, had given me one perfect Christmas day.
If Santa didn’t exist would we have to have had invent one anyway ?
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