The two week holiday over December and January has been huge, with two house guests and kids on trips away and then back and then a full table for Christmas lunch. It was perfect and by perfect I mean it was perfectly fun with all sorts of imperfections that made it wonderful.
I don’t like rules so I made sure there were none. There is a fine line between traditions and rules, so I try to keep the traditions low and rules non-existent. When a linen napkin went missing on the day I was setting the table, I went with cheerful paper ones. And guess what? No one asked about the paper napkin. When I didn’t have matching cutlery, guess what? Nobody asked as they shoved ham down their gobs.
When the kids drank gin before lunch, I asked for one to be poured for me, marvelling as the blue turned pink Butterfly Gin from Tasmania.
The problem with traditions is that they can become stifling and going off book can be seen as a token of insurgency. God help those who don’t adhere to the Christmas rules chapter and verse growing up. No wonder so many of us who had those rules about how things were done, now ad-lib our way through these sort of events.
Tradition is a feeling, not the napkins or the right plates or forks. I don’t subscribe to the feeling of, “this is how we have always done” it because traditions don’t help us. They hinder us and arrest evolution. They make people stubborn and petty, and small-minded.
The “tradition” I have is the more the merrier and whatever happens, happens. We didn’t eat dessert until 7 pm after eating lunch at 1 pm, because we moaned about how full we were and then fell asleep. There is a certain peace about Christmas afternoon while people nap. Pant buttons secretly unfastened and perhaps a paper hat to cover your eyes.
Evening came and we ate dessert and more champagne while we watched a movie. Tired and sated, we ate more food again and then rolled to bed, the dishwasher doing its fifth load for the day.
Today is my first real day off after being the chief cook and bottlewasher to the house and house guests, both now left but then one returned as her Gippsland town was evacuated. She is safe now and back with family.
I spent today in my nightgown and cotton robe and wandered about the garden with secateurs in hand, snipping and adjusting the plants. It was perfect and by that I mean there were no rules. Just going with the day and seeing what came up for me. I finished watching the show was the Unabomber, which was terrific, and now and playing with my new 2020 diary and writing a few goals.
I have both children home again and will make amazing vegetarian nachos for dinner and maybe watch The Gloaming. Who knows? There are no rules. None whatsoever and that is why holidays like this are the best.
This is the first time I haven’t had to fill in a booklist, or get one of the kid’s school shoes, or try and find when the uniform shop is open as they seem to be only open every third Thursday from 7.53 am till 8.10 am at the schools my kids were at. Such odd hours, always! There has been no hassling them to read the English texts or heading to Kmart for stationery and Officeworks for the “special five subject notebooks” which they never fully used. Having no children at school is an unbelievable release of time and energy. I didn’t realise how much my head would have normally been in this space already. It’s a mental load I am happy to be rid of.
The last few days of my holidays will be about being present and moving from one thing to another, perhaps reading my book, napping, walking the dog, or watching a video on how to propagate plants, or rearranging some art, or feeding the citrus trees. I can do whatever I like, and this is my new tradition. 2020 is already treating me well.