Dysfunctional families are at the heart of the Christmas spirit | Peter Goers
It’s an annual guarantee that goes all the way back to the first Christmas, writes Peter Goers.
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Most families are dysfunctional – some more than others – and most families are most dysfunctional at Christmas.
Some might say it all began on the first Christmas Day, when strangers arrived to greet the Virgin Mary and her new baby then three mysterious old men on camels turned up unexpectedly bearing gifts of gold (handy), frankincense (an essential oil and all essential oils are really inessential) and myrrh is a gum resin which treats deafness and lockjaw.
“Just what I always wanted”, Mary may have uttered with a fake smile. Plus they had to deal with at least one cow and the herald angels singing. Hark indeed!
Perhaps this original dysfunctional family Christmas scenario can make your own look more congenial. This is the message of Christmas.
Like amoebas, families grow, flourish and divide. Families are the bedrock of our society poised for rumblings, cracks and seismic shifts.
Families are political entities. There are factions. There is rancour and old and new wounds.
Hopefully there is love, regard, respect, hope and joy among the family members who are drunks, loudmouthed, surly, high-spirited, spoiled, overexcited, weepy, grieving, aggrieved, hypercritical, snarky, narky, cheapskates, intensely annoying, conspiracy theorists, over-sharers, demented, drooling, unwanted and at least one person (generally a mother) who does all the work and soon becomes a martyr.
Fortunes are spent on presents that nobody really wants and what everyone really wants is for it all to be over and to have a nap after lunch.
Most difficult are the pressures on divided families with kids pushed and pulled between separated parents.
We baby boomers recall Father Christmas bringing modest but welcome gifts.
Dad got socks, Old Spice and soap on a rope.
Mum got new tea towels and a pinny. Nanas got hankies and talcum powder and grandpas got a tin of Dr Pat pipe tobacco.
We kids got a book, maybe a new Dickies beach towel and some Meccano.
Kids today get cars, stock options and electronica and everyone else gets a new kitchen.
Christmas was the only time we ate chicken and for dessert Christmas puddings coated in suet and hung in muslin bags in the laundry and full of the shiny bounty of threepences and sixpences.
It was the only time we ever ate cashews and whatever happened to the homemade confectionery White Christmas?
Our tinsel Christmas tree had caught on fire and burned the terylene curtains and all presents had to be unwrapped with great care so the paper could be smoothed out and used every Christmas.
The highlight of Christmas was on Boxing Day when, stonkered, we’d watch, as a family, the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.
We had no interest in it at all but we were all glued to it as it was something to do.
I’ve become that annoying uncle at Christmas who goads vegetarians and is entirely inappropriate.
I give only cash because it takes much less effort and you can see people’s eyes glitter with gratitude.
The only Christmas present I’ve received in 40 years that I really liked was a book given to me as a Kris Kringle and then someone spitefully took it off me.
Christmas comes with too many expectations which are impossible to meet.
A really happy family occasion is too often expected. We come together as a tatterdemalion family and try to love and share the Christmas blessing of hope.
Fail again. Fail better.
Christmas is most joyful for kiddies who still believe in Christmas.
Happy Christmas to all dysfunctional families and yes the turkey was dry, Uncle Darren hogged the prawns and Mum drank way too much Mumm and who’s going to the servo as, dammit, batteries were not included.
Peter.goers@news.com.au
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