Breaking Traditions

I’ve always been a big Christmas fan, but sadly the Christmas spirit is somewhat lacking in me this year. My family’s Christmases have never been a highly populated occasion due to one side of the family living over the ditch and the cousin department on the other side of the family being rather lacking, but there has always been enough of us to make it a decent affair. You know, the usual stuffing yourself till you’re so full you feel like a 36 week pregnant woman, drinking till all the bottles run dry etc etc. Not to mention the tradition of Pop mysteriously receiving the bowl of Christmas pud which contained the treasure. This tradition of sorts began with him spitting out silver coins “hidden” in his pudding which has escalated over the years from gold coins, to notes, to cheques, to credit cards to watches to golf balls and when it began to feel like he’d done everything but the kitchen sink, what else to do but the kitchen plug.

This year though, things are looking a bit grim. 50% of the family is going to be spread across the world in far off locations like Bulgaria, Wisconsin, Papua New Guinea, Queensland and Tairua. And with our family never having been one to have sack fulls of presents under the tree, this year is going to be somewhat depressing with the pathetic number of only 5 of us for Santa to pass presents out to. The other oddity this year is that for as long as I can remember we have spent Christmas at the beach, whereas this year, as lovely as it will be, we are spending it upon my new parent’s deck out at the family home in South Head. It’s not a bad thought to be relaxing out in the country, something I haven’t done since leaving home, but not being able to go for our traditional morning swim in the sea before opening up the prezzies will be a bit sad to say the least. I guess we’ll have to settle for a swim in Lake Ototoa instead.

Now, I’m sure some people would roll their eyes at this and say come on Tui, it could be far worse but I guess the crux of all of this is that for the last 21 Christmases I’ve had my brother alongside me to dive into the sea with first thing on Christmas morn, to tear open presents with, to stuff my face with and of course to try spy with on how Pop always gets the “treasure”. This year is going to be the first year ever that I won’t get to share all these precious traditions with him and it’s quite a sad thought.

I do have the prospect of Christmas 2008 to look forward to though when we will be reunited to eat and drink ourselves silly and to possibly set a new tradition of having a White Christmas!