WRITING GALLERY - DECEMBER 2024

A FIRST AUSTRALIAN CHRISTMAS
by Sallie H

June 1965 and our little family, my widowed mother, brother, sister and I arrived in Australia to start a new life. Who would have thought that Melbourne in the middle of winter would be so warm.

Now fast forward to December and it was even warmer. Somehow it just didn’t seem like Christmas. Winter in the U.K. often meant waking up and scraping the ice off the inside of the window to see what the weather was like. No double glazing or central heating in our house.

Christmas decorations were going up in Melbourne and working in the city I was able to watch the Myer Windows display of mechanical figures come to life depicting the beautiful Swan Lake. I’d never seen anything like this before. Daily I, along with

many others, would press our noses up against the windows to see the next exciting episode unfold and watch as the ballerinas pirouetted and danced across the windows.

On the portico above Foy’s, yet another department store, a huge Father Christmas was erected, his larger than life right index finger beckoning shoppers inside to see what was on offer.

Then the question arose as to what we were going to do for Christmas lunch. Usually we would have had roast chicken with vegetables followed by a Christmas pudding, plump with fruit and of course silver sixpences and threepences. Christmas

crackers would be beside each place ready to pull so we could don paper hats and read silly jokes. Sometimes there was a trinket too.

However this year we were in Australia and we had read that Australians go to the beach for Christmas lunch. O.k. so we were a bit naïve, but we so wanted to fit in. Mum made sandwiches, we’d never heard of a b.b.q., and wearing bathers under our clothes, we grabbed towels and marched up to the station to catch the train to the city. Once there, we clambered onto a tram to take us to the seaside.

It was a grey overcast day but nonetheless we were determined to be like every other Australian.

Excitedly we walked from the tram to the beach, I cannot remember nearly 60 years later which beach but that wasn’t important. We headed down the track and there before us was…. an empty beach. Where were all these Australians we had read

about. Was there maybe a special beach where they congregated? Never mind.

The sea didn’t look all that exciting, grey and choppy so after dipping a toe in, we decide to forego the swim and eat instead. A wind had sprung up and of course that meant sand in our sandwiches. Yummy.

Rather disillusioned we made our way home. Later talking about Christmas at work, I found out Australians rarely go to the beach for Christmas lunch. More likely a backyard BBQ or even the full roast dinner at home.

We sure learned our lesson and the next Christmas was a very different affair.

 A YARN ABOUT CHRISTMAS TIME
by Trevor S

“Hey, Pop. You’re always good for a yarn. Christmas is coming up in a few weeks. Tell me about your Christmas experiences. You’ve had quite a few.”

“Guess you’re right. Seventy-eighth one this year. Can’t remember them all, but I have a lot of fond memories. Where do I start? What would YOU like to know?”

“Let’s crack a coldie and see where we end up. You always talk better with a beer in your hand.”

“Smart arse! Good idea though. Pressure’s off, now that you can drink legally!”

“Let’s start with family. Christmas always seems to bring families together.”

“I could say “Santa”, before I could say “Christmas”. Santa brought families together. “I come from a very large family: nearly fifty aunts and uncles, and pushing a hundred first cousins. If they all turned up for Christmas, we’d have to take over a small village. Back when I was a little tacker, we didn’t have so many people. We spent more Christmases with Mum’s side, than Dad’s. Actually, we generally spent most of Christmases, at our home.

“Mum was a really good cook, so it was common to have Mum, Dad, my two sisters and me, plus rellos, neighbours and outsiders, digging in. Dad was great at finding lost souls who needed a bit of festive cheer.”

“So, that’s how and when you learnt about the Spirit of Christmas?”

“Probably.”

“Gee, with so many mouths to feed, it must have cost a fortune.”

“Not really. People pitched in. Dad’s mother always had a great vege garden – pumpkins, peas, silver beet, rhubarb, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, lettuce and more. Dad kept chooks and ducks, so a rooster or a drake were usually there to sacrifice. So were pigs for pork, though meat was usually bought from the butcher, unless one of our uncles had a farm kill. Milk and cream came from one of the dairies, nearby.

“Mum, or her mum (Nana) would make a plum pudding, with threepences, sixpences, shillings and two bobs, cooked inside. You’d be rich if you got the slice with the two bob (twenty cents) in it.

“Mum used to make the best custards for the puddings, and there was always a fight amongst the kids, as to who got the skin on top.”

“Skin on top? … of custard?”

“Always. Not like a processed slop that masquerades as custard, these days.”

“What about Christmas trees and presents? They would have been part of Christmas, wouldn’t they?”

“Sure were. We didn’t have those fancy conical or artificial trees you have today. Dad would go out, into the scrub, and bring home a sapling, which he’d stand in our loungeroom, in a cream-can of soil, or sand or rocks, whatever, to keep it upright. Us kids would spend days doing the decorations. My sisters were better that me, and I often got into trouble for wrecking their efforts.”

“Were you a vandal?”

“Nuh. I was the middle child between two sisters … with attitude!”

“What sort of presents did you get.”

“Toys and clothes mainly. Santa didn’t have much to choose from, those days. Nana, Mum’s mum, bought presents for all of her eleven children, and every grand-child, even if it was just a hanky or a pair of socks. Sometimes you’d get a small packet of jelly beans, or life savers or something, as well. Loved my Nana to the moon and back. She did this even when we became teenagers.”

“So, you believed in Santa?”

“Still do, though I didn’t for a time. Believing in Santa, is to believe in positivity, and this helps to believe that, with even small steps, we can make the world a better place. There is such a thing as peace on earth and goodwill to all men. I saw that in my Dad, with his lost souls. He was a great Santa Claus, even though he never wore the suit. Nor did he own reindeers and a sleigh. I even played Santa, a couple of times.

“Wow. That’s profound. I never thought of that, this way.”

“Don’t ever give up on Santa, Mate, even though we have elements in our society hell-bent on destroying this pivot of our Christianity, never give up on Santa.”

"But Christmas is becoming so commercialized. It takes up so much time, and money.”

“So does pursuing lost causes, like the Voice, renewable energy, mis- and disinformation … don’t get me started on them.

“How important do you thinks Christmas is, to the outside world?”

“Probably a lot, especially in the Christian world, anyway. Isn’t it?”

“Not only the Christian world. Nearly two hundred states and territories across the world celebrate, or acknowledge Christmas, with most declaring it a public holiday. Only thirteen states and one territory do not do this.

“What does that tell you about those who challenge our Christian Australian way of life?”

“You make your point. So, what else has made Christmas great … in your opinion?”

“Where were we?”

“Methinks we had just finished Christmas dinner. Want another beer?”

“My oath. All this talking has made me dry.

“Well, after lunch, we would wait for the women to do the cleaning up and the adults would probably have a cup of tea. Beer and wine were not big on the menu, but they were there, along with spirits. Nana always had her bottle of Sars, and a block of chocolate.

I remember Dad once got some bottled wine in and put them in with tall bottles of beer and softdrinks, in a hole he dug under our house, where he iced them down. My mate and I accidentally opened up one of these cooled bottles, and drank the worst softdrink we’d ever tasted.

“Did you get drunk. How old were you then?”

“About fourteen, I think. It took the adults a while to wake us up, and fathom out what had happened.

Anyway, depending where we were, eating watermelon and a swim in a creek or a lake, were usual afternoon activities.

Dad would often remark that you could always tell when kids had been eating watermelon, by the seeds in their ears! Watermelon fights amongst ourselves and/or against neighbours were often a highlight.”

“You threw watermelons at one another?”

“No. Just the peels."

“Did anyone get hurt.”

“Most times. That was usually the signal for the war to stop.

As we got older, novelty races, handicap sprints, cricket matches, pool, card and board games, drinking, chatting etc, filled in our afternoons and evenings. Most times, there were singalongs, as well.

There were always plenty of left-overs and nibbles to satisfy appetites, before the customary Christmas barbecue.

Going to bed, after that, was a very staggered exercise, and waking up time, for Boxing Day, was generally discretionary.”

“Gee, Pop. I now know more about having Christmas with you, and the fun we could have had.”

“Not a problem.”

“You know, Pop, in your life you have: believed in Santa, not believed in Sant and, played Santa, Now you’re starting to look like Santa. Ha, ha!”

“Smart arse. Here, I’m passing on the baton. Cheers.”

CORSET CRIMINALS CAUSE CHRISTMAS CRISIS
by Cindi B

CHRISTMAS IN A STRANGE LAND
by Malcolm W

I met the love of my life when I was 22 years old, and working as a glazier in my hometown of Bournemouth on the south coast of England. Her name was Marilyn, and she was on a working holiday from Sydney Australia. She got a job in the office at my workplace about a month before Christmas. On the day we broke up for the holiday I was in the office, and on an impulse I asked her “What are you doing for Xmas? If you’re at a loose end you could always come to our place, we’re a family of seven, but my dad always cooks enough for a dozen people.”

“Thanks for the offer” she said, “but I’m going to Devon to meet my Mum’s family. I won’t be back until the Friday after.”

“Okay, if you feel like some company that night I’ll be at the Home Guard club just down the road from here for a dart’s match. Pop by and have a drink with me.”

“Thanks, I might just do that.”

She turned up that night and we hit it off, and within a couple of months I had left home and moved in with her. The day I packed my suitcase and prepared to leave, I said my farewells to my siblings and mum & dad.

“You had better be sure of this” my dad warned, “If you go now, there’s no coming home if it doesn’t work out.”

“Fair enough” I said, hoping to sound nonchalant. Mum opened the front door, kissed me on the cheek, and whispered “Don’t worry, you can come back at any time.”

A month after I moved in, Marilyn came down with a cold as the English weather finally wore her down. She had been doing all the cooking until now, and she was concerned how we would cope now she had taken to the bed.

“Don’t worry” I assured her, “My dad and my grandmother have taught me to cook.” She didn’t look totally convinced, but was probably reassured by the fact that from the bed she could still observe what I was doing. We lived in a one-room flat where the kitchen, lounge and bedroom were all in the one room. We shared a bathroom and toilet with a couple who lived down the hall.

In a few days she was feeling well enough to leave the bed, and I came up with an idea to cheer her up. “Now you’re feeling better I’m going to cook up a nice Christmas dinner to make up for the one we missed having together. I’ll use a chicken rather than turkey as there’s only the two of us.”

She didn’t look completely convinced, but she smiled. “That’ll be nice.”

I felt really pleased with myself as I put the meal on to cook. I had stuffed the chicken as my dad always did, and would serve it with roast potatoes, carrots and Brussel sprouts, just as my dad did. I even had a surprise dessert that I thought she would love.

Marilyn was sat at the table as I took the chook from the oven, and she looked impressed. When I went to serve up I wasn’t feeling so confident now. The food looked good, and the gravy had turned out well; but something didn’t feel right.

“Did you make the gravy from the giblets?” she asked.

“I didn’t see any giblets” I replied.

“There’s usually giblets, they come in a plastic bag inside the chicken.”

With trepidation I cut open the chicken with some kitchen shears, the sight and smell of melted plastic took the edge off our appetites. We made the best of what we salvaged from the experience.

“Well at least I’ve got a nice dessert for you” I said proudly. “I remembered how you told me of your love for passionfruit and your disappointment that you couldn’t get them here; well I found a passionfruit pudding recipe, and I managed to get some tinned passionfruit to go in it.”

As I served up the dessert I felt obliged to apologise “I did my best to make it look good, but I’m afraid I couldn’t get all the seeds out.”

Fifty years later she still likes to bring up that story whenever anyone mentions passionfruit.

By the time Christmas came around again, we had travelled around the world so I could meet my new in-laws after a low- key wedding in a British registry office. My mother-in-law insisted on a good old turkey dinner with all the trimmings on a sweltering summer day with just ceiling fans to cool us down. This year, as we have now done for many years, Marilyn and I will sit down to a cold Christmas dinner of seafood and salad, and not a passionfruit in sight.

NO EXCHANGES
by Robyn B

She held the gift and in that moment her heart was both full and held in time, waiting. It was wrapped beautifully and deserving of its part in the spectacle and pantomime of the setting. Another small but important detail to complete the color and richness, the rightness of their first Christmas together. Perfect. With ceremony she slowly lay bare what was held inside.

And while her hands carefully worked, she breathed it all in, her senses working mathematically in a carefully honed system of balance, aesthetic details of give and take, of right and wrong, of light and dark. She felt his eyes upon her, and felt a kinship with the angel held aloft in the branches of their Christmas tree. It stood carefully, exactly in the corner, its feet deep in cool still water. She breathed in the smell of pine and watched the carefully arranged lights shower them both with shards of colour.

The wrapping paper fell noiselessly to the ground, leaving a warm soft bundle of redness in the cool of her hands. A scarf. She looked up at him and smiled, but had already left the room, returning for a while to a different time and place, where she was playing with her younger sister, pushing the swing higher and higher, in measured exact arcs, until she could push her off the seat and watch her crumble into a tangled broken pile of redness. 

Calmness righted itself. 

A scarf.  A token expanse of fabric that could be anyone’s, belong anywhere but had no place in the warm Queensland sun. She looked at him, perfectly framed in that light streaming through the window behind him. A tapestry now devoid of colour, hanging behind the perfectly set table which still provided evidence of the first two courses already partaken, painstakingly prepared, perfectly presented and lovingly served.

She looked at the new watch shining, marking out perfect time, now on his wrist. She had spent months procuring it, first establishing what he, in his heart of hearts, truly wanted and making that, him, her goal. But the contractual obligation had not been met, the sole commitment broken. Her sister and parents had not understood that either.

She looked again at the scarf and smiled, standing somewhat resignedly to serve the plum pudding, that would be his final course.

CHRISTMAS
by Julie S