And so this is Christmas

I'm finding it hard to get in the festive mood. It's not the weather because, thank God for small miracles, it's surprisingly cool for this time of year. By cool I mean it's not yet 50 degrees. There's a beautiful breeze most days and I am still able to breathe relatively comfortably. I haven't really felt festive at Christmas for a few years now. Maybe that just happens when you get older. Each year it becomes more and more of a drain and each year you can handle less and less festive spirit in the form of sparkling wine.

When I was a kid I looked forward to Christmas from about October onwards. By the end of the birthday marathon it was time to start preparing for Santa's visit. Of course now that I'm a mother who has to work for a living and try to provide many Santa gifts it has a new meaning. How my mother who had five children and ran a business did it I will never know.

My brother and sisters and I would spend hours drawing pictures of Christmas trees and colouring them in and hanging them all over the house. We'd make loops out of coloured paper and string them together and hang them in a doorway and on the tree. We'd carefully plan our shopping lists with the small amount of money we'd saved throughout the year. We'd write lists of things we hoped Santa would bring to us. Our home would become a veritable drop in centre . Friends and family would be in and out and the front door, not even bothering to knock. Those who knocked were not known to us but my father would still not bother getting up from his chair. He would simply yell "Enter" in a voice so loud it would frighten away even the most hardy red cross collector.

My father always left a six pack of beer for the garbage collectors, the postman and the milkman. We'd all stay up late Christmas Eve hoping to get a glance through mum's bedroom door where she'd locked herself in trying to wrap and sort out Santa's stash. We'd wake at about 3am to sneak a peek at our stockings but first we'd hurry to the kitchen to see if Santa had drunk the beer we left him and eaten the Sao smothered in Vegemite. We'd then go lock ourselves in the bathroom and check out the goods. We'd go back to bed for maybe another hour and then later make as much noise as possible while pretending to be quiet so that Mum and Dad would get up and we could open the gifts under the tree. Mum would play some carols and ever so graciously tell us how beautiful the strung together ceramic swans we bought her were and how they were just what she wanted. Dad would read every word on the label of the cheap aftershave and tell us he'd use that as soon as he had a shower.

Someone was given the job of stashing all the wrapping paper in the bin and then we were shooed out of the house so mum could start the gargantuan task of cooking a turkey, taking phone calls, wiping bloodied knees when someone fell of their new bike, and slapping hands when someone attempted to stick their finger in the gravy to test it out.

We'd sit on the front lawn and wait for the neighbourhood kids to come by with their new shiny toys and we'd compare. We'd then stuff ourselves stupid with food and then in the afternoon have a water fight with the hose while Mum and Dad slept.

Maybe I just don't have enough kids.