Saying “I love Christmas” is, I know, one of those silly, obvious things that people say. It’s like saying “I love not being stabbed by newly-sharpened pencils”. And despite Christmas being a hard thing not to love (save for specifically prohibitive religious beliefs or an overwhelming Grinch-ness), people say it every year. I do too.
Because sometimes loving something creates in its own ferocity the necessity to proclaim it.
I often forget just how much I love it, only to be reminded by a twinkling tree shining through someone’s front window, a Salvation Army band playing a carol on a street corner, or a sniff of that intoxicating combination of cinnamon, pin needles and wrapping paper.
I love everything about it, but it’s been particularly fascinating to see the focus of this adoration shift slightly and continuously over the years.
In fact, it dawned on me today that if you wanted to somehow chart my life- maybe for some kind of personal report card that I know you’re all secretly keeping on me- you’d just have to look at my Christmas year after year to see where I’m at as a person.
There I am as a kid, playing with his magic set. There I am later, oh ghost of Christmas past, a surly teenager doing everything he can to pretend he’s ‘over it’. Oh look, that’s the year I must have bought my Xbox. And there’s Christie now, sitting beside me…
As with most people, Christmas for me has always been about family. But in childhood, this is easily taken for granted. Family is always there, so instead of relishing the opportunity to spend time together, as a kid you focus on the stuff that isn’t as common. Most significantly, presents.
I still remember so many of the presents I was given for Christmas as a kid, though many of the givers have probably forgotten them. Lego train sets, magic kits, a beginner’s science lab; all are stored permanently in my memory, if no longer in my cupboard.
As self-sufficiency kicks in, the gifts become less important (though no less appreciated), and the focus shifts onto the people. We all get busier, so Christmas becomes the only time you get to see some of the people you share DNA with. Bonding with the potential future blood donors.
The size of the tables shrink and grow, as though breathing slowly. When a family suffers a loss during the year, you feel it all over again at Christmas. When a new partner, spouse, baby or close friend come along, they are gleefully folded into the mix.
And that’s how it’s been for me. Our family still celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve, embracing the German traditions we’ve lived with all our lives, and those we’ve created for ourselves. My wife has joined the table and relishes each of the new annual events she’s become an inseparable part of; making biscuits with my mum and sister, going to the German-language Christmas Eve church service, eating our customary roast duck stuffed with green apples.
I in turn have joined hers on Christmas Day, waking up at dawn to wear pyjamas while opening presents, driving across Melbourne and embarking on a long, decadent, continuous meal.
And we’ve made our own traditions too. We decorate our tree, dust off the iTunes Christmas playlist, dedicate a night to enjoying the lights in the city, cook together, have a Christmas party with friends and, every year, watch ‘A Muppet Christmas Carol’ together. There are few things in the year I look forward to more.
On Saturday, we went to a local Carols By Candlelight near our home here in Sydney, and we both had the same thought at the same time; maybe this would become a new tradition.
But the changes from Christmas to Christmas are even more intrinsically linked to who I am and where I’m at as a person in any given year than the simple and joyful observation of traditions.
In my mid-teens I performed heavily improvised ‘Christmas spectaculars’ for my family every year, now I spend weeks planning recipes and menus for the things I’m going to cook. It’s the same show-off impulse, manifesting differently as I get older.
When I proposed to my wife on the Empire State Building, it was Christmas Eve. If any given year was a tree, Christmas would consistently (and appropriately) be the star on top of it.
Christmas is different every year, but consistently wonderful. Like the fake outtakes at the end of the Toy Story movies.
It’s easy to love Christmas. But it’s not often enough I take the time to think about why I love it.
Now that we’re in Sydney, and family and friends are a little further away, we’re creating new traditions and excitedly looking forward to the existing ones more than ever.
So, in the words of my favourite Christmas song, ‘have yourself a merry little Christmas’.
-Tristan
Tags: christmas, family, friends
I visited some friends in a northern suburb of Sydney on Australia Day, and as I pulled up outside their house, I noticed a small collection of people gathered around a patch of nature strip, their lips scrunched into pouts, camera phones pointed at the grass.
