Family Joy is the gift of Christmas

Vanessa presents Scarlett

It is a pity Christmas comes only once a year because it brings such joy and happiness. Ours was a wonderful Christian family celebration beginning with the Christmas Eve children’s service at Concordia Chapel followed by merriment at home with French champagne, fruits, chocolates, dips and nuts. This set the scenario for gift-giving. Gifts are such a delightful gesture of love and my little bounty included a precious personalised calendar featuring grand-daughter Scarlett, plants for my garden (hoorah) and home-made jams. However, the greatest surprise for both parents – Sandra and John and myself – was theatre tickets to see Les Miserable and dinner beforehand on January 9. We are never too old for the Oohs and Ahhhs that such a thoughtful gift engendered.

Scarlett received a toy shop of goodies, among which were my own gifts of two bonnets, books and a Peter Rabbit money box. She brought back delightful memories of her father, Tyson’s first Christmas when he was six months, a month older than her. He had received a big parcel but what interested him was the wrapping paper – shiny bright blue celephane with silver stars on it. He learnt quickly to scrunch up the paper let it go and watch it unfold. He was fascinated and we laughed until our sides ached…this serious little face, intrigued with a piece of paper rather than the gift inside.

When my children were young, we always exchanged gifts early on Christmas morning, but at Tyson’s home with Vanessa’s parents also present bringing their strong European tradition, we exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve. This left Christmas Day free for feasting. And, oh what a delicious spread, made lovingly by my daughter-in-law Vanessa and her mother, Sandra, whose collective cooking skills are not to be challenged. This left me with the unenviable task of buying the oysters at Samtass Seafoods on Christmas Eve and in what I considered a smart move, I avoided the city and went to the Richmond Road outlet. Wrong! At 10:20am the shop assistants were up to order number 310 and I had just taken a ticket numbered 479. However, the crowd was in Christmas spirit and the hour long wait was quite a social experience with a line-up winding outside the shop onto the pavement. No-one was impatient, or nasty or abusive at the long wait. Here was a united nations of people planning to celebrate Christmas Aussie style – buying tonnes of shellfish – prawns for the barbie, fresh oysters and crayfish, but also whole snapper, cockles and smoked and pickled products. Little conversations broke out throughout the ranks despite the fact that we were packed in like sardines.

Joy and laughter dominated our Christmas day. We laughed heartily when Vanessa produced Scarlett dressed in the popular Christmas pudding outfit from K-Mart, which clearly pleased Scarlett because she refused to miss a minute of the action, screaming at any attempt to put her in the pram. The adult children ran random photographs on the television screen of our combined family life – the Herbigs, the Williams’s and the Fouberts -and my saddest moment was when photographs of Olivier’s and my wedding popped up and there we were blissfully happy cutting the cake. How my life has changed since that glorious day almost five years ago. Yet, despite the flow of tears, it was strangely comforting also to know that he was with us for the day, through the wonders of technology and in those memories triggered by such happy images of our family life.

Scarlett oversees Christmas breakfast

However, Christmas Day belonged to Scarlett, who oversaw the breakfast, sitting on the table in her sitting chair, like a real pudding, seriously observing us all. Somehow her parents got her to sleep long enough for us to have lunch when we enjoyed a magnificent spread. It began with oysters naturelle and Kilpatrick and prawns followed by orange-baked ham, stuffed chicken, pudding with brandy custard and trifle doused with liqueur and finished off with cream. Afterwards, I was given the right to choose a movie – Angels and Demons – for us all to watch and we didn’t get to the cheese until 6pm. Olivier would not have been pleased at this downgrading of the cheese platter and had he been here at the head of the table, cheese would have been served with salad before dessert. They recalled his very French idiosyncrasy with deep affection and toasted his memory with a 1996 Bethany wine, kindly provided by Tyson’s boss, Stuart, his guest for the lunch.

Vanessa’s l’art de la table

So, I have survived my first Christmas without Olivier and I know he would have been pleased at the joy and happiness of the day. (See my foods blog for more photographs.)

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