Peter Goers | Why I’m glad Christmas only comes but once a year

It’s all very strange that you have to give presents – including those dreaded Kris Kringle gifts – to people you don’t like and don’t want to see, writes Peter Goers.

“Christmas comes but once a year”, quoth the lyric of an old song. Thank God for that. Or thank Jesus because Jesus is the reason for the season although almost everyone except, possibly, Scott Morrison, seems to have forgotten that and now, even more mercifully, we’ve all forgotten Scott Morrison. Who?

It’s often hard to fathom the point of Christmas other than the joy and awe of kiddies and the commercial bonanza for both Australia and China. All of the Chrissie schmatter and gewgaws you buy from those dreaded Kris Kringle gifts to bonbons and wrapping paper and tinsel, LED lights and almost everything else comes from China where it’s Christmas every day. Who cares? Christmas is good for the economy. Booksellers say there are two seasons – Christmas and not Christmas. Books make great gifts. Yes, please.

Only one person of my acquaintance actually likes Christmas and they can have it and deck their halls with boughs of holly- tra-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la. It’s all very strange that you have to give presents to people you don’t like and don’t want to see. I only give cash to people I like and I watch their eyes light up with joy.

This Goldendoodle is as excited about Christmas as Peter Goers.

My best Christmases in recent decades have been away from anyone I know – overseas. What a grinch I am. But I’m no orphan in this. Most of us just want it all to be over. The best part of Christmas is Boxing Day.

The food’s nice but you’ll need another mortgage to afford crayfish. Why is it that Australian crayfish, lamb and gas are cheaper overseas than here? This is a great mystery.

What I love best of all about Christmas is Smyth’s Christmas Mixture – the best in the world and they are made by a venerable SA firm. Yummy! Other than that Christmas is full of false expectations and confected cheer.

Meanwhile, let me be the ghost of Christmas Past and remember Christmas in the 60s. We had a tinsel Christmas tree which melted under the lights and fortunately didn’t catch the terylene curtains. Father Christmas drank his glass of milk and ate his Yo Yo biscuits and left modest but well-received pressies – a new beach towel, Meccano, a book. We’d go to church and I’d cringe with embarrassment as my grandmother sang the descant of Oh Come All Ye Faithful, too loudly.

Back in the loungeroom we’d nibble on once-a-year treats, cashews and White Christmas as the grandparents opened their pressies – talcum powder, soap, handkerchiefs, a tobacco pouch. For lunch, which we called dinner, we’d have chicken which was then unique to Christmas and a great treat. Dad would get the parson’s nose. This was followed by a Christmas pudding which had been covered in suet and left hanging in a muslin bag in the laundry for weeks. It was served with lumpy custard and embedded with thruppences and sixpences which we masticated gleefully. Then we’d all be “stonkered” and do nothing.

Christmas in the 50s – those were the days. Or were they?

Christmas cards would festoon the mantelpiece and wrapping paper would be ironed and put in the linen press to be re-used next year. The absolute highlight of Boxing Day was watching the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on TV. It was essential viewing even though none of us had the remotest interest in it. It was something to do.

We hosted an old not-aunty, Ethel, who had nowhere else to go, mainly because she was intensely boring and annoying. We put up with her. Nowadays, I am her. I’ve become that sort of annoying uncle who can be relied upon to do and say the wrong thing. I delight in this.

We should feel for the friendless and lonely at Christmas. Lucky bastards. However, we should reach out to the poor and we should, of course, count our blessings and cherish family. If you can’t cherish your family, find another one. That’s always worked for me.

And keep yourself nice and eat and drink as much as possible. I suppose we’d miss Christmas if it were struck off.

Concentrate on the joy and awe that kids bring to Christmas because too soon they’ll be bored with it like the rest of us. Let them have the magic of their Christmas dream before the cynicism slouches off to Bethlehem to be born.