My husband is pulling together
the frayed edges of his nerves, after having a family of five staying
in our home, and I am nursing my aching body after having prepared two
enormous lunches, served al fresco, firstly to my step-children and
step-grandchildren on Christmas Eve, and then to my children, grandchildren
and their partners on Boxing Day.
During this time we hosted one
of our children, his wife and three youngsters of nine, seven and three,
for a little holiday. We first had notice of the impending family visit,
in an e-mail, whilst my husband and I were on a two month European vacation
that ended on the first of December when we flew into Adelaide. I had
replied that when we arrived home I thought there would be a need for
me to enter a Rest Home to recuperate after hauling cases and assorted
bits of luggage around European cities, climbing five flights of stairs
in a Paris Hotel every day for a week and simply tramping foreign soils.
The vain hope was that the family having taken pity on us, would suggest
taking us out for Christmas lunch instead of us having to provide a
large meal for a large number of people. Silly of me really, my pleas
for mercy seemed to have flown right over the top of their heads
Christmas Eve came, and due to preparation
and planning we were ready for our family meal. The outdoor Barbeque
Oven created a miracle of roasted chicken and turkey accompanied with
dry roasted vegetables, just drizzled with a little local olive oil.
This was served with large bowls of salads, and followed by Pavlova,
a super-size meringue with crisp crust and soft, melt-in-the-mouth centre,
served covered with whipped cream and a mixture of strawberries, blueberries
and sylvanberries with wonderful wine coloured juice just trickling
over the side in little red waterfalls.
What a handsome lot they were our
family, enjoying Christmas lunch on the porch, the children happily
eating theirs from plastic plates, picnic style, sitting on a rug thrown
down on the lawn, under the sheltering arms of the apricot tree. Our
meal was completed by delicious coffee latte from our own espresso machine,
almost the most valuable of my kitchen appliances when we are having
a posh lunch, and envied by some of the younger members of my family.
The coffee machine was a gift that my husband and I gave one another
when we retired from our manufacturing enterprise, so that we could
enjoy a really good coffee on our sun-washed porch, or the aroma of
coffee with an early morning breakfast of toast and home-made marmalade
and the weekend papers.
The entire meal preparation and
serving time was fraught with frustration for us, and accompanied by
our agonised cries of "Joe, please shut the door," as the
youngest member of our guest family, a child of three had come from
a cooler climate, and a home without a screen door to keep out the flies
and keep in the cat. Our cat, an Abyssinian named Gizmo, being an indoors
cat, would just love the opportunity to escape to a childless outdoors,
the smell of roasting turkey and the wild blue yonder. We therefore
tread a fine line in cat and child management, in allowing Gizmo to
come in from his little cat house for short spells, so that he does
not become too frustrated, and so the children can 'pat the cat.' They
however do not understand the words, 'don't chase the cat, just let
him come to you,' and so we have their feet pounding through the living
room to the dining room and down to the bedrooms chasing him out from
under the table, to peering under the bed and their piping voices saying,
'can you come and get Gizmo out Grandad, he is under the bed?' Poor
Gizmo, he is the visible evidence of our inner distress, but hey, it
is Christmas, and we need to display some peace and goodwill.
Gift giving followed lunch, and
excited little screams came as each child opened a gift and found something
that pleased them, with 'look Mummy, look what Aunty Cathi gave me,
isn't it lovely.' On balance, we had a great get together, and take
great pride in this family and its achievements and beautiful children,
together with the news, brought to us this day, of a new baby boy to
come in June, we are truly blessed as a family. Amid the ruins of Christmas
Lunch we speculate on boy's names for the new member of our family.
Cathi wants to call him something different. She is aware how many boys
named Nicholas attend their local childcare centre, and wants him to
be called something unique. I am sure his name will be chosen with a
great deal of care and love, and he will be sharing the next Christmas
with us.
This whole production was repeated
two days later for the other side of the family, with the welcome change
to turkey breast roll, meat patties and chipolata sausages, all cooked
by the young adult grandchildren and their partners who we had met for
the first time. We all greet one another with hugs and sounds of 'Merry
Christmas,' as brightly wrapped gifts are carried inside to be distributed
after lunch. Giving the boys, the boyfriends that is, the task of cooking,
was an inspired decision of mine. It allowed them to do the macho Aussie
barbeque thing with a can of beer in one hand and a pair of tongs in
the other, and at the same time earned them brownie points with Nan.
Lunch was a joint effort with each family bringing salad, and the laden
table looked a picture with the beautiful colours of green tossed salad,
complimented by the glorious orange and yellow of the carrot and cheese
salad, and the wonderful creamy egg and potato salad tossed in herbs
and mayonnaise. This was much easier on me than the previous family
meal when the entire production had been my responsibility but was,
in part unavoidable, as the earlier families had travelled 750 miles
from another state to celebrate Christmas with us, and it was not possible
for them to carry food for the feast.
The family of five, with the screen
door challenged three year old youngster, left after lunch, to go the
beach for a few days and we are able to relax once more, knowing that
a cloud of flies will not be able to invade the house, and the cat can
have free run of his domain once again. When there are an abundance
of little flies buzzing around an outside meal, we all do something
that is called the famous Aussie wave, which is simply waving the hand
to and fro in front of the face to keep away the sticky little blighters.
A wonderful feeling of time having
slowed down settled over us after lunch, probably created by the wonderful
food, ice cold beer and glasses of local red wine. As we sat, content
and replete around our large table on the porch, I looked around the
table with pride at my family. They were comfortable enough with one
another for conversation to flow back and forth across the food as we
ate and drank, shaded by the huge branches of the laden apricot tree,
and washed about with cool breezes. There were no awkward moments and
all was right with our world at that moment. When we came together for
this Christmas meal we were able to forget for the time being, about
career problems, family difficulties, financial problems, and we knew
that here in this gathering of members of the same clan we had acceptance
of our weaknesses, pride in our strengths and encouragement for our
futures. What a precious thing this gathering together is. The food,
the table setting, the wine are of themselves only window dressing.
What is ofimportance is family.
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