Rory Gibson: How do I survive Christmas without my kids?

Rory Gibson’s kids are leaving the nest. How does he cope when they’ve made other plans for Christmas?

I got on the sauce with a cohort of fine fellows a few days ago.

It reminded me how your life can change significantly but often you don’t notice it has.

These men are all fathers with children roughly the same age as mine. That’s how we met.

We spent the best part of 15 years chatting on the sidelines of suburban footy grounds, in the stands at swimming pools watching water polo games or inter-school carnivals, at school fetes or at each other’s houses where our kids could socialise while leaving the parents in peace for a couple of hours.

U on Sunday columnist Rory Gibson on why he’ll miss his kids on Christmas Day.

When a text went out to gauge interest in a catch-up, the response was enthusiastic. About 18 of us gathered to the fray.

There are firm friendships in this group of daggy dads, and it was great to see so many familiar faces. We used to do this on many a Friday night during those school years.

But as I said, life moves on in its relentless way. All our children are young adults or on the verge of it. Some of the marriages that produced those children no longer exist. Houses with pools have been swapped for smaller abodes that have no children living in them, and some of us have left town seeking a different life.

Nostalgia can be an inaccurate historian, but listening to the banter around me I felt a sense of loss that those regular catch-ups with such a diverse group of men were now a thing of the past.

There was a double blow. My eldest son informed me that he was spending Christmas with his girlfriend’s family, excusing himself from our tradition of him and his brothers having a surf with me on Christmas morning, followed by beer, prawns and war movies.

Another son is spending his Christmas in Vietnam, so it’s just me and the youngest munching on Yamba kings and watching Inglourious Basterds again.

I know quite a few exhausted people who are still in those years where dependent children dictate a family’s routine, and they wonder if it will ever end.

I can assure them it will, and at some point after that they’ll realise how rewarding it was.