The stress, madness and chaos of Christmas Day with the family is what makes it | Nick Ryan

Be honest – we’re all dreading some, or many, things about our Christmas Day celebrations. But, as Nick Ryan writes, you just have to embrace it.

And so we slide, appropriately enough, into the goose fat days.

For most of the year, my cluttered thoughts can’t find room for geese, the feathered kind at least, but come Christmas time procuring some of the fat that helps it float is a priority that outweighs getting presents for the kids.

While olive oil is more than capable of roasting my potatoes at any other time, there is an expectation that Christmas Day spuds will be crisped by a fat that is rendered, not pressed.

Such are the quirks of Christmas.

We all do strange things around this time of year, the logic and reason applied to 51 other weeks dissolves during this one.

In my family, those quirks manifest themselves not in the way we show our love through gifts, or how we choose to celebrate the spiritual side of this special time.

It’s pretty much all about how we stuff our faces.

Does your family stress about putting on a spread of food that could feed you for weeks?. Picture: Supplied

In fact, 67 per cent of the phone calls I’ve had with my mother this year have carried some mention of the Christmas pudding she was making.

The most recent of them delivered the news she’s decided she won’t bring it this year because it’s going to be even better next July.

She takes these things seriously. Years ago I was living in France and when my parents came to visit for Christmas, Mum was slugged excess baggage for the 9kg pudding she had in her bag.

She’s also the one that has fought moves to simplify Christmas lunch harder than anyone.

It’s the full catastrophe or it’s nothing.

This is the woman who once insisted on lighting the fireplace on a 40C day because it was more ‘festive’.

A monster ham, or two, is a staple of the Christmas feast.

She’s a major reason why lunch hits the table sometime around sunset.

The fact she’s passed this mania on the me is the other one.

Managing oven space when you’re required to roast the population of a kid’s petting zoo is a logistical conundrum that seems to get harder every year.

Fridge space is equally precious, especially when I insist on two hams each year.

One for glazing on Christmas Day, and the other kept pristine because that’s how it has to be for the mountain of sandwiches that need to be made in readiness for the first ball of the Boxing Day Test.

Add a bit of alcohol and madness is sure to ensue.

It’s why I need to take a trailer to the servo to get enough ice to fill the flotilla of eskies pressed into service once the drinks fridge in the shed is commandeered to house the 40 litres of stock I’ve been making all week just to get a head start on the gravy.

There’s none of that Paul Kelly rubbish here.

Every year, when I nap on the couch while everyone eats, I say I’ll find a more efficient way to do this, but I never do.

It’s the madness that makes it, the chaos that has always defined our family dynamic made manifest in carbs and fats, salt and smoke.

May your version of Christmas calamity bring you as much joy as mine brings me.

Originally published as The stress, madness and chaos of Christmas Day with the family is what makes it | Nick Ryan