I suspect it has to do with the fact that we are a small family, here in Australia at least. I realise this is quite un-Italian of us, but my Aunt Rita often says the Togninis are very clannish (and not in the way that involves wearing kilts!). She’s right about that, and in the lead-up to Christmas this year I’ve felt the separation keenly and with a great tenderness of heart.
It’s not that our family Christmases have been the kind people wax lyrical about. The kind that you see on film. A very Tognini Christmas is best described as a special kind of very loud, exceptionally well-catered, organised chaos that is intermittently disrupted by ideological warfare, heated arguments and, when she was still alive, threats by my nonna (who never learned to drive) to walk the 12km home from my parents’ house to hers if we didn’t all stop shouting at one another.
As a child, I loved it. The complete lack of any kind of decorum or formality. Lolling about all day in our bathers. Listening to the adults talk, shout, laugh and get on the phone to Italy, comparing how much snow had fallen there with how scorching it was here.
As I got older, my role felt as though it morphed into a curious mix of operations manager, referee and energetic bench-sub in the occasional verbal fracas.
The absolute absurdity of things that were argued about around our Christmas lunch table!
Like the year dad and nonno spent four solid hours bickering over whether Manhattan is an island. It got emotional. It became heated. Idle threats were made and returned.
In keeping with the spirit of Christmas, it was never actually about the subject matter, it was about the sweet taste of victory.
Moreover, you know the things you’re not supposed to talk about over a civilised meal, politics, and religion? They are our favourite things. Politics and religion are the main course. Sport and history, our after-lunch digestive. Nobody, but nobody, mention the French.
The action started well before the meal. My brother, somewhat festively agnostic, would be deep in a book, watching the clock till home time. My dad, the self-anointed star of the show, was a pathological exerciser and would insist, even in the most extreme temperatures, on running from mum and dad’s to my aunt and uncle’s house.
On the days he didn’t call and ask mum to go get him because he’d conked out along the way, he’d arrive showing why we call it the “Tognini sweat gene”, and insist on sitting down, drenched and shirtless at the table. Occasionally, he’d invite someone he’d met at the TAB who had nowhere to go on Christmas Day, without telling mum or my zia. Surprise!
When my brother’s children arrived, we enjoyed a short, collective reformation but it wasn’t long before we lapsed into recidivism. As they grew, they joined in and trust me, they held their own.
Oh, I’ve known some stressful Christmas Days and probably I’m reminiscing through a lens that’s too soft to be accurate, but what if Christmas was never meant to be perfect in the first place? What if Christmas is really about celebrating amid the imperfection that is every family under the sun?
If we look at the story of Jesus’s birth, it makes sense. He was born in a manger. Romantic if you believe the sanitised version. But if you stop and consider that a manger is a stable and stables are where animals live (you get my drift), the analogy is pretty apt.
History tells us that Jesus’s birthplace would have been crowded. Uncomfortable. There would have been a strong agricultural vibe. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest it would have been quite stressful to a young couple having their first baby. No lactation consultant to help with breastfeeding and no nurse to pop in and grab baby Jesus when he was screaming his nut off at 3am and Mary was about to climb the walls.
I’m not being heretical, I’m serious. Yes, Christmas is wonderful. But we fall under this pressure, not just commercial pressure, but social pressure, to have a day that must conform to an idea that’s not realistic, in order to be beautiful. To be worthy.
I want to celebrate the awkward Christmas Days. The ones where we have blues and storm out and come back and make up. The ones where it’s all we can do not to explode. The ones that are quiet and a bit reflective. Perhaps tinged with a sense of loss. All these days are wonderful in their own way. I’ve known them all.
This year, I’ll spend Christmas Day with friends who are family. I’ve been warned there will be zero formality, much food, and loud conversation. I can confidently say I’ve been in training for this day all my life. From my tender heart to yours, Merry imperfect, messy, unconventional Christmas, one and all.
Stubborn Winter clouds state’s future as party games continue
It’s game on in Tasmania, with both major party leaders flagging they can form government after the election of a hung parliament. The Greens’ offer of a ‘conversation with Labor means nothing can be ruled out.
Biggest drag on our nation is ineptitude of government
After my experience of governments for more almost four decades, having always tried to work with government from the non-government side, I have to confess to being an unbeliever.
Today will be the first time in my 49½ years on earth that I will be away from my family on Christmas. It’s the first year I’ve spent Christmas away from Perth, actually. In the spirit of complete disclosure, I’m feeling a bit wobbly about it, despite being a grown woman with a reasonable amount of life under her belt.