It’s Christmas. That time of year when everyone goes slightly insane. Everyone spends money they don’t have and relatives you can’t stand and never see for the rest of the year come and sleep the night. We have a large family; all our friends and relatives do too.
The plum pudding is made and is sitting fragrant and plump in a tin dish wrapped in a tea towel. We have a cooked ham and two chickens. My mother has been hiding nuts and lollies in the top of the linen press. We know they’re there but even standing on a chair on a table doesn’t give the necessary height. (We’ve tested at least six times!) The presents are on top of Mum’s wardrobe. There are dolls with blue eyes and cars with sirens and books. No one knows what belongs to who but we know we have a bumper crop to harvest this year.
On Christmas day the first aunties and uncles arrive. The aunties are fat and smell of face powder. The uncles are thin and smell of Brylcreem. Aunties crush you to their bosoms. Uncles pat you on the head. The aunties have red mouths and wobbly necks with beads around them and say “How are you?” and laugh in a way that makes you know they don’t mean it. The whole house smells like Christmas trees and wine and the heat shimmers and the flies buzz. The smell of the roast cooking in its juice fills the air. The children of the uncles and aunties hang back or push forward so aggressively we feel forced to pinch them when no one’s looking.
We have our presents but when you have them they lose the charm they had hidden on top of the cupboard. Now we only want to get into the kitchen and eat the lollies and watch the adults drink sherry and beer. At last the table’s set, everything is ready. The adults move forward slowly but we surge in cuffing each other with excitement. What a sight! Coloured lollies, white table cloth, silver cutlery all set out in the middle of a banquet. A feast for Kings and Queens! The plum pudding is on the sideboard. In a silver dish beside it, I know there’s a hot custard sprinkled with cinnamon even though it’s covered with a tea towel. There’s red and green jelly and whipped cream like snow. My mother takes the roast out of the oven and my father carves it and the chickens and slices the ham. Little baked potatoes and tiny golden carrots in butter spill out on to the plates. And the gravy! Ambrosia. The big silver pot is full of steaming tea.
Some of us have plates with edges so we can’t spill the food but we do anyway. The hot kitchen is packed. The windows are open to let air in and we hear birds on the fence singing and smell the red roses on the bush near the back stairs. At last, we’ve eaten everything we can eat. The adults groan in their chairs. They sigh and the men light cigarettes, then they talk and talk. We go outside and play with the balloons we’ve stolen off the walls. We drop them on the grass and watch them burst. We feel ill and deliriously happy.
Uncle T. has a wrinkly suit. He’s not a working man. He wanders with his family from town to town. Farm to farm. Buys on credit and when it’s too much to pay he moves on. He has a gentle, wastrel’s face. Weak chin. Uncertain mouth. Uncle S. is a boozer. He’s always sad unless he’s drunk. He has gold teeth. My mother plays the piano and sings in the afternoon and some aunties and uncles who know the songs join in. The wine has mellowed all of them. At bed time we each have to have a strange child in our beds. The adults sleep on chairs, couches and the floor. Next morning they set off early: ‘It’s a long way’ they say. ‘We have to leave early to beat the heat.’ After breakfast they get in their cars and move off, waving, blowing kisses. Like a caravan they wind down the street. An annual caravan. Only seen suddenly arriving every Christmas and leaving chaos in its wake. Streamers dropping off the walls, leftover cakes and lollies, left over roast. Crumbs on the table, empty wine and beer bottles and the wilting Christmas tree and a feeling of sadness that Christmas is over.
Some small measure of anticipated joy still reaches out and touches me each Christmas.
