Further Revisiting the Rite of Christmas

We are again inevitably creeping towards Christmas, strangely always a little bit sad but somehow uplifting at the same time. Memories of family festivities are ever special, small children in dressing gowns feverishly tearing open parcels in the chilly dawn recalled with delight. Of course that dawn was never quite as chilly when transferred into the South Pacific no matter how much bogus snow was sprayed beneath the gaudy Australasian tinsel tree. No real ones readily available back in the 1980s and in any case my small daughter was totally captivated by tinsel. All the grown children keenly recall the annual celebrations although for one they are central to the misery we relentlessly spooned into life. Anachronistic Yuletides can prevent growth towards assimilation for some, denying them the opportunity to integrate into local society. Others, happily more emotionally robust remain unscathed. For the afflicted, however, the pain does not ease simply because thousands upon thousands of immigrants experience the very same syndrome – Smothering Mothers intent upon forcing Diwali or Lantern Festival or Hanukka upon their helpless infants who struggle to escape.

Being a run of the mill Christian from North Kent for me it was the replication year after year of an old fashioned Victorian Christmas complete with roast goose and plum pudding. And let me tell you here and now that although plum pudding was not impossible, a goose in Auckland, New Zealand in the middle of summer was not altogether without complications. But if you were determined and left no stone unturned and began the search at the beginning of October, it was not impossible to find one and once located it was really only the roasting to perfection that needed attention.

It was undoubtedly selfishness that propelled me to work so determinedly towards the Very Best Christmas possible and that was because that significant time of year had been, for me and my brother, inordinately exciting. Not that we were to be blessed with more than those around us but it was a time when extreme poverty could at least be cast aside for a day or two, neediness giving way to the smell of tangerines and spices and the sounds of carol singers and Salvation Army bands, to the excitement of second hand Toby Twirl and Rupert Annuals and brand new school socks from the market. For the grownups there were always early morning cups of tea fortified with tots of whiskey adding yet another distinctly festive aroma that hovered pervasively in the humidity of the kitchen until that of roasting chicken overpowered it. There were unusually from Christmas Eve on, always two fires in the house, in both the kitchen range and the normally icy front room, where all pecuniary caution was thrown to the winds and the grate heaped extravagantly with precious black coals. Oh yes indeed we were definitely guilty of splashing out for Christmas!

Little wonder that in later years I was not prepared to be controlled and quelled by the New Zealand fondness for barbecues on local beaches, for sausages and cold ham with mustard for tinned peaches and Hokey Pokey ice cream. My own extravagantly organised festivities in the depths of bushy Kohimarama had been born in a world peopled by characters from the imagination of Charles Dickens and predestined to be barbecue free. Thus my powerless children were to endure for years a strictly Northern Hemisphere rite. A relic unbefitting for a True New Zealand family and certainly damaging to the future happiness of the vulnerable. But to me, the doggedly determined architect of the annual plan, it was an embodiment of the little bit of England I had grasped from memory and held fast to, so fast that even now when I close my eyes I can very nearly catch the aroma of tangerines and tea with whiskey.