Christmas Spirit

It’s easy to get caught up in the pre-Christmas stress where everything becomes a chore: putting up the tree, buying presents for family and trying to fit in all those social occasions.

All year I look forward to this season and then, last week, I wondered why I was feeling so glum. When I scrutinized this feeling it came down to letting everything get on top of me and turning what should have been a fun time of year, into a martyrish occasion.

I decided to change my attitude and lap it all up.

Here is what I love about this season:

# Decorating the tree together while rocking the carols;

# Decking out the rest of the house in bling;

# Dusting off my favourite recipes for neighbours, teachers and friends – watching the kids delightedly skip back from the neighbours, having experienced the joy of giving and not just receiving;

# Watching the kids’ faces as they see their personalised messages from Santa – even my non-believer is still rather taken with this - (www.portablenorthpole.com);

# Attending Christmas in the Park – always a fantastic evening in Whangarei;

# Doing the lights trail on the way home;

# Making Christmas lanterns with the kids’ class;

# Hosting a pot-luck dinner with friends chez moi where we wear and serve only our finest – this is girls-only with Miss Seven waitress and chief photographer;

# Our annual girls night out on the town where you are likely to catch up with people you haven’t seen since the last one;

# Realising I have lots of Fly Buys points from my second home at New World to spend on fun stocking fillers to balance the practical stuff I have already put aside;

# Recycling the kids’ unwanted toys and giving to children who will appreciate them;

# The final, crazy supermarket shop where there is delicious food-galore and catching snippets of fellow shoppers conversations excitedly planning their menus for the big day;

# ‘Accidentally’ being a little heavy-handed with the top-shelf while making the egg-nogg;

# Watching the riveting season finale of Shortland Street as the fairy lights twinkle;

# The town a mass of rouge as the Pohutukawa trees bloom on cue;

# The communal generosity of giving as the Christmas spirit comes to the fore;

# Playing Santa;

# Lapping up the kids’ excitement Christmas morning;

# Drinking the egg nogg;

# Relaxing and unwinding in the company of all the family who have congregated and being thankful they are still with us.

Shattered Illusions

“Why does the queen get all the money?!” Miss Seven asked one day, studying the royal profile on a $2 coin. “It’s not fair, what about the King? He doesn’t get any.”

“Well I don’t think the King is as important as the queen,” I responded.

“But that’s not very nice. They should both be important.”

Ah yes, she was quite right but how does one explain monarchy?

I thought we’d left the whole “Why is the sky blue?” behind in the toddler years but, in actual fact, the questions just keep coming.

This will be Master nine’s first Christmas as a non-Santa believer and the twin’s last. 

When Master Nine put his theory to me halfway up Mt Manaia mid-year, I knew by the look in his eyes there was to be no bluffing this time. But he was told if he wanted to continue awakening to a filled stocking on Christmas morning, then he wasn’t to spoil it for the twins.

He’s kept his mouth shut.

However, Master Seven is starting to get suspicious.

“Mum, how can Santa fit down our chimney – he’s way too fat?!” he asked the other day.

Looking at our tapered chimney, I had to agree it was a ridiculous notion.

“He just climbs through our window,” chimed in Miss Seven.

There are safety latches on all our windows, rendering the gap as small as the chimney so I had to play along and point this out.

“Well then how does he get in?!” demanded Master Seven.

“Maybe I left the door open that night.”

A sharp intake of breath: “What?! But then the baddies will come in and rob us!”

Yes, it will be their last as believers and therefore the last year I can play the “Santa’s little elves are watching you” card when they are misbehaving.

“But where are they Mummy,” asks Miss Seven, looking all around. “And why do they have such funny ears and why would they just come into your house?!”

It will be bittersweet to finally come clean. Enough of the lies but the innocent joy that magical fantasy brings will be lost forever. I can feel the disappointment already. Only last week I had to shatter an illusion to my boys.

Every week while their sister is at Brownies, we do the loop together. The boys had scootered ahead and were enthusiastically carrying out a work-out on the gym equipment by the time I got there.

“When do we get our hot dog anyway?” I heard one of them asking as I approached.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It says there, if you do enough exercise, you get a hot dog.”

I looked where they were pointing at the signs behind the gym equipment. It had a Health Guide stating that one hot dog equals approximately 40 minutes of moderate exercise. The word hot dog was illustrated with a tantalising picture of an American hot dog.

I had to break it to them that a hot dog doesn’t magically appear out of thin air if they do enough exercise. Their enthusiasm waned a little after that.

Blast from the Past

The girl sat alone, on the bench seat at the school watching the other kids playing around her and hoping. Hoping someone would ask her to play.

This was new to her – only weeks earlier she’d had two best friends but, cruelly, they had both moved town within weeks of each other. So now she found herself alone.

That girl was me, back in the 80s. I don’t know how many lunch times I sat there alone hoping the kids in front of me would ask me to join in their elastics but I remember the feeling. Everyone already had their cliquey groups but luckily it was nearly the end of the year. In the New Year I would be starting intermediate where I would make new friends.

We’d been a tight team – me Teressa and Julie, having sleepovers at each other’s houses, talking long into the night, then getting up the next morning and drinking cold milos in front of the cartoons. Julie and I would walk to school together and talk about … life. There was the occasional spat – three’s a crowd after-all – but we would always make up.

And then they moved away. I didn’t believe it when they each delivered the news. How could life be that cruel?

I never did hear from them again. But enter Facebook. Teressa and I got in touch straight away back in 2007, and although we still haven’t met up in person, keep in touch. Julie was harder to find.

Until she found me last week. She had seen a post on Facebook of my childhood home which is now for sale and it had stirred memories. “I recently saw an article about your 20-plus-year family home being up for sale and this also led me to believe you were she as the Jodi I knew lived a few doors down the road from my aunty and uncle. I was sure it was the house but was confused because I’ve a memory of it having a pool?!”

We spent many hours frolicking in the oval Para pool, purposefully capsizing out of the rubber inflatable dingy. The pool was removed years ago.

It was interesting to hear, as an adult, the reason why Julie left town and, after 28 years of no contact with some of her family back here, she had got back in touch, which lead her to think about her old friends and that long ago but not forgotten past she left behind.

She was rapped that I had thought about her for all these years and was able to share memories she had forgotten. Sometimes we leave chapters of our life unfinished but the places and characters are still there waiting to pick up.

We’re hoping to plan a get-together on our old stomping ground – a bit hard when two out of three live half the distance of the country away. But when it happens, there will be a follow-up. Watch this space.