Christmas Day 2020

After a wildly unusual year, Christmas Day felt, for us, very normal. We bought presents, visited family and ate the same food we do every other year. This wasn’t the case for everyone, though, and so I debated sharing pictures of our day, because while I’m sure some were happy to downsize, I know that many people struggled, and have been struggling all year due to the impact of this pandemic. But then yesterday Joan asked me what presents she got for Christmas last year, and I realised how special it is to have a record here on the blog. So, here it is, Christmas 2020.

The four of us spent the morning at home opening presents and eating pastries and fruit salad, as is our tradition. Being summer we used lots of stone fruits like apricots, nectarine, mango and cherries (though Walt remains dubious about cherries, which is fine; more for me). Joan tore through her gifts with a perpetual grin on her face, then inspected her loot more closely, while Walt moved slowly, opening one present at a time and examining every detail, sometimes for thirty minutes, before opening another. Perhaps it’s his age, perhaps it’s his personality; time will tell. Either way, Joan found it immensely frustrating, and spent the better part of the morning begging him to open his gifts so that she could assess whether he had received anything that she might covet.

A few months ago the questions began: '“How can Santa can possibly deliver presents to every child?”. She’s starting to get suspicious. “How do you think it would work?”, I say. My strategy is to answer every question with another question. Most of the time her eyes will light up and she’ll whisper “Magic!”, which tells me she wants to believe a little longer. Next year, if she asks me outright or figures it out on her own, I think it will still feel magical. It still feels magical to me.

And so it went for a couple of hours: Ben and me sipping coffee while assembling a train set, or reading books aloud, or marvelling at new glitter pens. We then drove to Red Hill for lunch with my parents, grandparents and brother, along with one of my brother’s friends. Mum and Dad made their usual spread, which was as phenomenal as ever, despite the fact that part of the oven broke while cooking the pork. After lunch Walt had a nap, while the rest of us ate pudding and lazed about on the couch. When Walt woke he asked for “pudding cake” and ate two serves. We drove home in the early evening with a container of leftover pudding and boozy sauce on Ben’s lap, which the two of us ate once the kids were in bed.

The days of waving to my masked parents through our loungeroom window feel distant. And yet it wasn’t that long ago. Life feels at once normal and uncertain, and I’m still trying to reconcile this. But I know that it felt really good to be sitting on the floor with my kids opening a new book that Santa had given them. And it felt really good to pour a second cup of coffee and hear Walt say “oooh mince tart” while holding his pastry in front of his nose. Our bubble is a blessed one, I know it. And how lucky we were to move beyond our bubble on Christmas Day - to visit our loved ones, hug them, exchange gifts and eat my mother’s plum pudding.

Much love to you, wherever you are in the world. x

My brother on crackling duty, taking his job terribly seriously.

Snack plates for the kids’ dinner. Ben and I ate all the pudding ourselves while watching a movie on the couch.

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