‘Tis the season
Thursday, 29 December, 2005
In accordance with German tradition, the extended Beilharz family gets together on Christmas Eve. Normally we rotate between the houses of the three branches of the family but over the last couple of years, it's either been at the Blevins' or at the Beilharzs'. This year it was at the Beilharzs.
We picked up Ben's grandma and drove over. Everyone had already arrived which I thought was odd because I didn't think we were late.
“Don't worry about it, darling, I think I told you the wrong time,” said my mother-in-law as she kissed me hello.
We added our presents to the communal pile and went and said hello to everyone. Eating began not long after, with BBQ chicken, garden salad and Ros' Changi crispy noodle salad (same as Haoran's; you make it off the back of the packet). Because of space problems, a lot of people went and sat on the outdoor furniture in the backyard to eat. I didn't want to get eaten alive by mosquitoes so I stayed inside with most of the cousins.
Ros, who is hugely into presents, was hanging out for when it was time to open them. Tim was playing at the 11 pm service at Gymea so they were on a tight deadline. Eventually everyone was rounded up and Hans played Santa Claus and handed everything out. The Blevins are always very generous and every single one of their children—married or not—always buys their own presents for everyone else. It's always made me feel a bit guilty because Ben and I have never reciprocated (we always buy a group present for the Blevins but now that Trev and Fi are married, we've been getting them something separate) but as I watched all the cousins, I wondered if I might be able to knit something for everyone next year. Something to think about ...
And as usual the cousins had a wrapping paper fight which most of the wives refused to participate in. The gathering broke up not long after Tim and Ros had to go and we dropped Ben's grandma home and went home ourselves.
Christmas Day and for the first time ever we didn't have three big things to go to. (Can you understand now why we don't go to church on Christmas morning???) We normally do morning present-opening with Ben's family, lunch with my mum and Peter and then dinner with my dad, stepmother, stepsister, stepsister's family and stepsister's in-laws. This year my mother changed Christmas lunch to Christmas dinner because my brother had to work on Christmas Day. I suggested to the Beilharzs that we have Christmas lunch with them and I promised my dad we'd drop by in the afternoon. I don't know how the rest of you do it but having four things around Christmas really takes it out of me. I've heard that other couples do it by going to different family gatherings in alternate years, or by doing certain family gatherings early. Ben suggested that we set up a bidding system whereby each branch of the family is allocated a series of points with which they can bid to have our presence at such-and-such an occasion in such-and-such a year.
What I want to know is when you get the point where you do your own thing and they come to you. But I've met couples with kids that say they still haven't reached that stage so maybe it never happens until you put your foot down. However, having parents who are divorced means that it will never happen; you will always be compartmentalising your Christmas into different bits simply because there are people who cannot be in the same room with each other.
Again, we picked up Ben's grandma and went to the Beilharzs' where everyone else had already arrived—including family friends the Thomases who had invited themselves over for lunch. We ate first—much to Ros' horror—and then unwrapped presents. I was very excited about my lot. Not only had I wrapped them up very nicely but I had gotten everyone things which I thought they would really like. I was particularly excited about Lizz's present since I had spent a month or two making it.
“I've forgotten what it is,” she said the night before.
“Yay!!!” I crowed and clapped my hands; all the more surprising it would be!
“I remembered what it was this morning,” she said as we started unwrapping presents.
“Oh blast!” I said, but I was still excited, given it's pretty much the first time I've given anything I've knitted to someone else (Denise's scarf doesn't count because I wasn't there to see her open it and to this day I still don't know whether or not she liked it).
The Beilharz family always takes turns giving out their presents, so Lizz went first, then Hans and then, as I had requested the middle, me and Ben. I handed them out and told them they had to open them in turn because I wanted to see whether or not they liked them. And I am very happy to report that Lizz liked hers very much:
(I got the rose brooch from Accessorize when we were in Melbourne in July.)
Now Ros would like me to knit one for her too!
(I'd actually like to make Ros one of these but I think I need to get better at blocking first.)
The others liked their presents too but they were all store-bought thing, not things I had made. They also liked the little pipe cleaner decorations I had made to adorn the wrapping. Then it was Tim and Ros' turn and then it was Cathy's turn. And then it was about time for me and Ben to go.
My dad and Helena were home and they showed me their fantastic Christmas tree which was covered in these funny lights that looked like daffodils with smiley faces. Seeing this and Loobylu's Christmas ornaments made me wish that we had a tree too! Ben and I have never had one.
We exchanged presents and I was gratified to find that Helena did like the present that I gave her—a scarf/shawl I made out of three different kinds of yarn (also bought in Melbourne in July; I think it was Ostrich, Funky Pom-pom and something else I've forgotten the name of). I didn't make it specifically for Helena—I made it to sell at the Moore College fête—but since it didn't sell, I thought she might like it.
We stayed there for about an hour, mostly talking to Helena (who fed us this ginger and peach tee which tasted very interesting) as my dad had to go out and pick up the son of a friend of a factory owner in China who had come to Sydney to study and to improve his English. When he arrived, we spent a bit of time talking to him (I felt sorry for him; he was going to spend an entire evening with all these strange people!) and then it was time for us to go.
On the way out we met my stepsister, her family and her in-laws who had come for dinner. My stepsister gave us a present like she does every year and we said goodbye, explaining why we could not stay. To be frank, I was quite relieved to be going—not because I don't like her or her family but because I didn't really want to be in the same room as her father-in-law who, last year, said some not very nice things to me.
At my mum's we were the first one there and I decided to go for a swim (been looking forward to it all day. I do actually enjoy swimming but it's often too much of a bother so I never do it). The water was divine and I spent a lot of time swimming up and down the pool and in circles. Ben sat on the edge and dipped his feet in the water (Ben doesn't swim) and then my mum came out and I talked to her while treading water.
When we had first moved into this house, the pool had been this disgusting murky green and, for some reason I don't quite remember, I had fallen into it and my uncle had dived in after me. Since then I've never seen it that colour—despite all the wrestling with the Creepy Crawly and the pool filter that my mother does—and despite the year when the Shire was suffering from bush fires and ash got carried by the wind across the river to be dumped into her pool—my mum has always kept it nice and clean. After I moved out she even got the entire thing pebbled and switched to salt water.
I had a shower after getting out of the pool and then joined Ben eating pistachio, brazil and other nuts in the lounge room. My mum showed us an episode of People Just Like Us and the my brother arrived. We were still waiting for my aunt (who only lives a couple of streets away) to come and finally Peter said we had to start without her. She came just as we were sitting down to dinner (another Peter special: turkey with cranberry sauce and gravy, mixed pumpkin and parsnip, veggies and potatoes). Her English isn't that great so she spends most of the time talking to my mum in Chinese.
“Did she say I was fat?” I said, hardly believing my ears. Okay, my Chinese is not good but I can pick up words like “Karen” and “fat” fairly easily.
“No,” my mum said hastily, “she saw a picture of you that [her son] took when he was here and in that she thought you looked fat.”
(If someone would care to give me an explanation as to why relatives feel the need to discuss your weight in your presence, I'd love to hear it.)
After dinner we opened presents and, having been warned off in previous years about guessing what the presents were, my aunt kept quiet. My mum played Santa Claus but, just like every year, there were a number of objects labelled, “From: Peter. To: Peter” which Peter unwrapped with great cries of, “Just what I've always wanted!” and “Oh thank you!”. I whispered to Ben that next year we ought to bring our own “From: Peter. To: Peter” presents but put silly things in them.
My brother Kenneth had given me and Ben, at Ben's request, Live 8 on DVD (Elsie, if you want to borrow it, you will have to ask him). As soon as he had opened it, Kenneth asked if he could watch bits of it and so we were treated to performances by Destiny's Child, Will Smith and Joss Stone as we ate ice cream and fruit for dessert. My aunt went home and I helped my mum with the dishes while Ben, Peter and Kenneth watched Pink Floyd and The Who (I never knew that Peter was into Pink Floyd). Kenneth went home but we stayed for a while, watching more of the concert. Then we too went home.
Present highlights:
- Delicatessen on DVD;
- IKEA CD shelf;
- keyring torch;
- 5.1 MP digital camera;
- Live 8
- The Godfather trilogy
- I Hate Myself And Want To Die: The 52 most depressing songs you've ever heard (with this cover)
- Framed picture of me and Ben from last Christmas, Photoshopped by my mum who gave me a speech bubble saying, “I can hold a smile for five minutes,” and Ben a speech bubble saying, “I can hold a smirk for five days”.
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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Other comments
My family has always had alternating Christmases, and usually the gatherings are held at the homes of the matriarchs (they are after all from a generation that regards the home as “mothers” domain…). The flaw in the system is that both sets of grandparents live in Tamworth, and so, we inevitably end up visiting them both. But dad always wants to spend more time with his parents and mum with hers, so there’s always tension about it anyway, and all I want is for the borders to be more clearly demarcated so we don’t have this argument every single year!! (as if that’s ever going to happen!) On two occasions, my mother has put her foot down and we have had Christmas at our own houses (once in Armidale and once in Dubbo, once with mum’s side and once with dad’s). They were both exhausting!!
However, the alternation does help at least a little when there are all the other families to visit. For example, we now visit our relatives in Toowoomba when it’s a Grandma Christmas, and we try to visit more of dad’s relatives when it’s a Nanna Christmas…
Also, about your relatives discussing your weight in your presence? Welcome to the other shining aspect of my family Christmas, the “discuss Joanna’s weight loudly across the dinner table while ensuring that all guests hear that the salad needs to be passed her way again so that she doesn’t eat more turkey and smack her hand away from the ham.” My Christmas lunches at Grandma’s consist of me eating about one third of what I would normally consume, which adds up to about one quarter of what everyone else is indulging in for Christmas lunch because my Grandma will be able to make the accusations more fierce if she sees me eating more than my stick insect sister.
Every time I go to her house, as soon as she’s finished asking how uni and church are going, she asks about my diet (which doesn’t exist).
She also helps to run and op-shop and so often puts aside clothes for my sister and myself. Usually when she holds up a skirt of a size which is too big for me anyway will say, “oh you did have to be such a big girl didn’t you Joanna (emphasis on the big). It’s impossible to find clothes for you!” (as if I didn’t know).
I don’t know why I said all that… But Christmas always makes me feel like crap.
Gee, I’m not surprised, from what you’ve written!!
I hate it how, just because you’re family, that seems to mean that normal rules of conventional polite behaviour don’t seem to apply!
It is quite strange how a lot of family members far overleap the bounds of conventional behaviour by commenting on things like weight. It’s a strange combination of them thinking firstly that there’s an issue, secondly it’s an issue of concern to them, and thirdly that because of their close association of yourself they have every right to raise the subject whenever they desire. But then there’s all the other people who take the liberty of commenting in public, and long exposure to people like that as well as to my family has taught me something important…
Our world loves to define people by the superficial. It’s easy and takes less time than actually getting to know someone. I know this partly because I do it myself. Especially within my family, I think my weight has become such an enduring subject because no one can be bothered to discover anything else about me to talk about! (I frustrate them all in having no romantic relationship! Ha ha!!! *triumphant/pirate like Ha Ha*) The thing is, I know that discussion of my superficial appearance can bring with it a whole raft of associations to do with my character (lack of self-control, selfishness, laziness, ignorance, gluttony, even disregard for the feelings of others) which are all negative, and accusatory, and this is partly why it hurts me so much. But these people who comment are just demonstrating how little they know me. My identity is not revealed solely by what they can see. If they took more time to get past the superficial, they could see this for themselves.
Also, I must apologise to my sister, she’s not a stick insect, she’s just naturally very slim with a very high metabolism…