Christmas: it’s magic we still believe
With the weight of expectation and immense pressure, it’s inevitable Christmas will let us down.
Christmas is broadly accepted as a kind of collective temporary insanity. It’s a mania that infects all who celebrate it, and likely mystifies those who don’t.
It should be uncomplicated. The premise is simple enough – a single day where families and friends congregate to eat, drink, exchange gifts, perform assorted rituals, and delight in each other’s company.
But it’s also somehow more than that. There’s a pervasive notion that Christmas stands for something meaningful. It’s not an arbitrary date, nor a craven scheme to stimulate retail activity. It is, apparently, magical.
We can probably all agree that it doesn’t feel too magical when you’ve been queueing over an hour for shellfish, or you’re running the department store gauntlet on Christmas Eve, or you’re up late baking an Alternative Fruitcake because you’ve forgotten, again, that Uncle Dennis has a severe nut allergy, despite the Great Anaphylaxis Incident of 2008.
Nevertheless, Christmas is suffused with a weight of expectation. We’re under pressure, striving for some elevated ideal, as though there’s a correct way to do Christmas.
I suspect, like so many things, this belief likely has its roots in childhood. As a kid, Christmas carried a clear set of rules, not too dissimilar to the Sunday School equation: Good behaviour + Distant Judgement = Heavenly Reward.
As such, my faith in Santa well exceeded any other omnipotent deities. Eternal kingdoms took a backseat to more immediate promises of loot.
However, as with any deal too good to be true, disappointment was inevitable.
I recall two instances from my childhood that border on the Dickensian.
One year, as per protocol, I requested a fishing rod via written correspondence. On Christmas morning, there it was, leaning against the tinselled conifer, wrapped in gaudy paper. I was one quick rip away from my dreams. I opened it, and there it was. A fishing rod, just as I’d asked for. But I soon realised there was no corresponding reel. I waited, believing Santa must have wrapped the auxiliary components separately. Perhaps there’d even be a bonus tackle box.
But as gift after gift yielded nothing, my confusion grew. Technically, I’d received precisely what I’d asked for, which amounted to nothing more than a long stick. I glowered, blaming an administrative error in the North Pole. Forgivable, I supposed, since angling was probably an unlikely recreation in the Arctic Tundra. Clearly I needed to be more specific.
So the following year, I petitioned pointedly for a Brian Lara Gray-Nicolls Single Scoop cricket bat. On Christmas morning, I ran to the tree to inspect the inventory. Sure enough, there was a conspicuous shape. Everything was as it should be. Until it wasn’t. The moment I ripped the paper, I knew something wasn’t right.
It was a bat, certainly, but something about it felt too familiar. Understandably, as it turned out, because it had previously belonged to my older brother. It was no longer required by him, since he’d upgraded to a new one at the beginning of the season – hence my request to the North Pole, motivated squarely out of envy.
This was the last straw. In an instant, I became a Nihilist. I believed in Nothing. The betrayal of Santa Claus represented the fallibility of all Gods. I rejected and repudiated all.
My blame, of course, was misdirected. Only years later did I begrudgingly acknowledge the rationale behind these “gifts”. I grew up in the country, a solid hour’s drive from any body of water substantial enough to boast piscatorial life. I may as well have asked for a snowboard.
As for the hand-me-down cricket bat – it was likely a reflection of my batting average at the time, which was edging single digits. This run of poor form was largely explained at age 13, when a routine eye test revealed I’d been functionally blind for the duration of my junior career.
This disadvantage also explained my mortal fear of fast bowling, which peaked on the day I ran myself out on purpose, so I didn’t have to face an opening bowler coming on for his second spell. Don’t get me wrong, my cowardice didn’t miraculously ebb once I’d installed corrective lenses, but at least I could now see the umpire’s finger point to the sky when I was trapped in front for f--k all. Point is – a new cricket bat, then or now, was not considered a prudent investment.
Despite my ruptured faith in earthly and ethereal institutions, for some reason, I continued to believe in the promise of a perfect Christmas.
But even well into my adult years, the day has been beset by unpredictability and calamity.
A particularly memorable example can be traced back a decade. It was the post-luncheon lull, and the mid-afternoon sun was too hot for backyard cricket, so a fiercely contested ping-pong tournament was instead underway.
In the midst of a tight match, my cousin returned from a brief sojourn to the beach with her dog, a clinically gormless golden retriever. It was mentioned, in passing amusement, that the dog, a famous glutton, had scarfed down a number of sun-dried blowfish that had been carelessly discarded by fishermen on the shoreline.
To my surprise, everyone laughed, endlessly entertained by this animal’s infinite appetite.
I frowned and paused, mid-serve: “You should probably take him to a vet.”
Not for the first time, my salient advice was disregarded.
“I’m serious. Those fish are incredibly toxic. If you don’t take him to a vet immediately, your dog is going to die.”
There was a ripple of indignation. My warnings were again dismissed.
I’ll be honest with you – it’s conceivable that I was motivated more by the fact that I knew I was right than the welfare of the dog. Either way, I hastily sourced corroborating evidence online and displayed it, a little too smugly, to all and sundry. It was true – without urgent intervention, the dog didn’t have long to live.
Panic spread. My cousin dissolved into tears. And that’s how, as the only sober member of the family, I ended up driving my weeping cousin and her blissfully unaware dog to the only emergency vet clinic open on Christmas Day. After an hour long journey, the dog was admitted and triaged with the urgency that the situation deserved. We retired, tensely, to the waiting room.
Let me tell you, there is no more emotionally tumultuous setting than the front lobby of an emergency vet clinic on Christmas Day.
I witnessed the anguish of families farewelling their beloved pets. I saw the grave concerns of people bustling in with their injured cats or dogs or ferrets, frightened and breathless. I observed heartwarming reunions.
After an interminable wait, later that night, a vet emerged with the news. The extraction had been successful, and the dog was perfectly stable and sedate. They had removed seven shrivelled blowfish, each swallowed whole. And, no word of a lie – three ping pong balls.
Between the childhood trauma and the dog rescues, it’s clear that, for me at least, there’s something dramatic about Christmas.
Perhaps that’s why all three of my novels have been set across the Yuletide period. This wasn’t a conscious authorial choice, but I suppose it’s no accident either. Late December is a distinct time of year. It’s ripe with pressures, redolent with relief and renewal, it’s hot and it’s heightened and it’s hopeful. It’s a time when Big Things happen.
A few years ago now, at the start of summer, I was packing up my house in preparation to move. I had lived there alone.
Since writing was my sole passion, solitude had become a precondition to my work. Novels tend to displace all else. They are greedy and demanding and notoriously challenging. They require the consistent dedication that an Olympian might bring to their discipline.
This monastic lifestyle made relationships difficult. I was married to my work, which was as unhealthy as it sounds. This only occurred to me when I packed up my world into boxes.
I had something of a spiritual reckoning. I realised I was at the wrong end of the Mephistophelian bargain. In dedicating myself to developing fictional lives, it was costing me my own.
So, I did something about it. I took a plane to New South Wales and ensnared the girl who almost got away. I lured her with the greatest gift you could offer a Sydneysider – the opportunity to be a West Australian. Bless her heart, she accepted.
For reasons hard to divine, it was suddenly very important to me that she relocate in time for Christmas. I prepared our new domicile with a frantic energy she now refers to as my “Bowerbirding Period”.
She arrived late on Christmas Eve. The house we stepped into was festooned with decorations, with Ella Fitzgerald singing carols, a log fire crackling (on a television screen), a carafe of wine, and an array of gifts laid out beneath a tinselled tree. We put her bags down. And everything was perfect.
Craig Silvey’s new novel is Honeybee (Allen & Unwin).