Twelve days of Christmas

Day 4

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

It’s that time of year again. We are trawling aimlessly through the Westfield Shopping Centre, looking for pressies for the rellies for Chrissie. We are trying to keep it down to $30 per person. Or maybe just $20 this year.

How much does a poor young couple without children (but with cats) need to spend on large families who have everything, to show them that we aren’t cheapskates and at the same time say that we care?

We are trying to do the math.

Day 2

Back home in Bombay, Christmas was free. Christmas meant midnight mass, fasting, fervent praying and a single day off. It also meant running up and down the stairs to deliver plates of Christmas cake, laddoos and chiwda to neighbours in the building. No presents and certainly no shopping. And Christmas lunch was an elaborate lamb biryani, not a leg of ham.

When we were kids, my mother used to take me and my little brother to find straw for the nativity scene. We’d build a manger from an old cardboard box and she’d tape the straw onto the roof. We’d then cover everything in miles of fairy lights so that the little figurines of Mother Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus were bathed in a disco glow of pink and green and yellow lights.

We’d put up a tree and listen to Jim Reeves. My mother would serve her special wine and plum cake.

Every year, I sit in the midst of the Aussie Christmas festivities and the mounds of discarded wrapping paper and think of the delicious biryani and my parents’ faces at Christmas time, and feel very lonely.

Day 3

My mood is dark as I walk into Myers. Young Christmas casuals are sporting reindeer horns, broad smiles and too much makeup.

“Have you done your Christmas shopping yet?” one of them enquires cheerily.

Outside, there’s a long queue to meet Santa but his chair is empty. In the petting zoo, a young deer with red antlers and bells strapped around its head is bucking and kicking. Its eyes are terrified.

But the halls have been decked since October! The fake snow, tinsel and Swarovski crystals glitter on 10 foot trees that loom high reminding you ... of what? To start giving instead of taking? Spending on others for a change?

But why spend at all? Does love equal money?

Day 5

JESUS not in stores this season! proclaims the church outside Mascot. I tug uneasily at the husband’s sleeve and point a trembling finger as the ominous sign flashes past on our way home.

“Ha!” is all he says.

Day 6

Thursday, late night shopping.

There are red-faced, tantrum throwingchildren everywhere, followed by shrieking parents, perambulating from shop to shop.

Christmas music tinkles soft as snowflakes over the frenetic Christmas shoppers milling all around us. It is largely ignored.

“Why can’t we just give them all a piece of toast and be done with it?” the husband is whinging, “Why not?”

Nearby, an angry mother is grabbing her brat by the arm and saying, “Behave yourself, Keira!”

I am beginning to feel like the mother. “I don’t know. Tradition?”

“No. It’s called greed.”

Day 7

I’m angry with the husband who as usual has forfeited all Christmas duties. Buying presents this year is solely my responsibility. Again.

“Why does this happen every year? They are your relatives!” I’m shouting and storming through the house. “Don’t you care?”

“Nope!” he says.

Day 8

David Jones, after work. Looking for shabby chic presents for the mother-in-law. I consult a shop assistant.

“Shabby chic, shabby chic, shabby chic,” she’s pointing and chanting. “The question is: how much is your mother-in-law worth?”

“Sorry?”

“One of my daughters’ receives a table weight every year from her mother-in-law. My guess is she bought a set of eight and is giving her one every year! What does your mother-in-law give you for Christmas?”

I can’t recall.

Day 9

“We’ll be in Dubai for Christmas, this year!” my mother is saying on the phone.

What? No tree? No Jim Reeves? No biryani?

“You mean no church this year?” I say accusingly.

“No,” she says. “Your father and I are going to have a stress-free Christmas.”

I hang up feeling confused.

Day 10

“Can we get a Christmas tree?” I’m asking the husband.

“Why?” he says. “So we can join the deluded masses?”

“So we can start a tradition of our own,” I say. “I want to have something to hand down to our children. Or cats.”

He looks as if he feels sorry for me.

“If you like, sweety.”

Day 11

Thursday night, Eastgardens.

The husband has his best Scrooge act on. He is dragging his feet, a scowl on his face, hissing at children and swearing about consumerism, relatives and unwanted presents.

Inside the Reject Shop, I find a bright green tree that only comes up to my knees. It stands shyly, its arms still furled, a piece of hessian covering its base, tied up with a bright red ribbon. $4!!

I carry my little green find in my arms and look for a star to match. The decorations aisle looks like it’s been hit by a bomb. Tinsel is all over the floor, the bells and baubles roll around. Nothing’s shattered because it’s all plastic.

Just as I find a silver filigree star for my little tree, the husband reappears with a loopy grin on his face. He is carrying a 15-metre roll of wrapping paper that looks like wallpaper at a dentist’s. From the ‘70s.

“No!” I say immediately.

“Yes,” he insists.

On the way home the husband asks what I’ll hang on my tree.

I tell him about the $200 decorations I’d seen at David Jones.

“That’s 50 times the cost of your tree!” he says.

Day 12

There’s an evil gleam in the husband’s eye. He’s spotted an empty jar in a display window. The label says “The Jar of Nothing”. “The perfect present,” he says in the manner of an evil scientist.

Back home, we wrap the presents in the hideous paper and stick labels on each one with a sense of accomplishment. We’re so relieved; we’ve even started looking forward to Christmas at my mother-in-law’s. The slight swelter of Christmas day with the imminent bushfire threat. The big leg of ham with a maple syrup and macadamia glaze. The little nephews running around. The banter and the wine. Backyard cricket. The feeling of being part of a family.

“At least we don’t have to get each other anything this Christmas,” I say, relieved. “We don’t?” the husband looks surprised. Uh-oh...