Only 32 Sleeps to Go!: Column From the Bearpit

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Only 32 Sleeps to Go!
I've done my Christmas shopping early this year. A combination of chance circumstances has given me the opportunity to shop alone, and to go into the city to shop before the Christmas rush. All we now have to worry about is the children's' stocking fillers, and Graham's large family (which is his problem!)
I was buying some nice books in the local bookshop when the proprietor smilingly said 'Only 32 sleeps to go!' I burst out laughing and asked how he had guessed the books were Christmas presents. (They were children's' books, so obviously not for my personal reading, and it seems likely that you would buy children's' things as Christmas present in mid-November rather than for any other reason. Not entirely logical, as I know numerous children whose birthdays fall in the six weeks before Christmas, but I could see his point).
I suppose I ought to find it amusing that, after nine years in England, I can't get my head around Christmas in the middle of summer. It didn't bother me, growing up in Melbourne - I suppose children are adaptable and don't find the same things strange that grown-ups do.
My mom always did the full northern hemisphere Christmas dinner thing - the turkey, the roast vegetables, the gravy, the pudding and the mince pies and the cake - even if it was a total fire ban day outside and so hot that you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. That mid-winter feast supposedly evolved because it was a lean time of year and we poor humans were gasping for fat to nourish us enough to give us a chance of living until the spring. (An excuse for gorging that has cheered many an overweight and guilty woman!) I suppose that, biologically speaking, an Antipodean Christmas ought to involve - what? Fish, probably, and summer fruit and vegetables. A fat lazy kangaroo, perhaps, barbecued. Friends in England always wanted to know if I had spent childhood Christmases having a barbie on the beach. Actually the answer was no, but they didn't want to hear that. I am thinking along the lines of seafood salad this year, given that my mom no doubt will still do the roast turkey, etc, bit for us on Christmas Eve.
I think it's a wonderful idea for children to be exposed to the Christmas traditions of other cultures. Of course I fully understand that parents from non-Christian cultures might prefer their children not to participate. Children, and parents, might well feel offended that Christmas is celebrated at school, but Hanukkah and Diwali are not. Many schools and kindergartens in Australia are now frightened to teach anything about Christmas in case it is seen as religious/racial discrimination against non-Christian groups. Given that Australia is nominally a Christian country, albeit one with a very successful multi-cultural approach to things, I do think it a bit of a shame that Christmas is seen by some groups to be evil and discriminatory.
This is all the more so when we consider the origins of Christmas. Not the Baby Jesus and the Three Wise Men, but the pagan winter solstice festivals, Saturnalia, and the biological imperative to eat fat and survive the worst of the winter, as mentioned above. Nothing very Christian about any of that! Mind you, do we want to teach our young children about such traditions!
The politically correct in Australian education circles apparently think that Father Christmas is all right, though, because he is not a Christian figure. I always thought he had roots in St Nicholas, but no doubt they are referring to the fat, jolly, red-and-white Santa Claus figure invented by American advertising gurus! It makes me worry for the fixture of multi-culturalism if a symbol of American commercialism is preferred over legitimate religious symbols!
Tamsin doesn't seem to be having any problems coming to terms with Christmas in the summer. All she's interested in is getting a Barbie Doll for Christmas. Somewhere along the line the 'real meaning of Christmas' seems to have been mislaid again. Last Christmas she asked if we could have a birthday party for the Baby Jesus. Her school is doing a Christmas concert of some sort, and as the Religious Education teacher is co-ordinating it, presumably there will be some sort of Christian reference.
I found her watching a Christmas episode of Hey Arnold! this morning, a big favorite of hers, and I was pleased to see that it had a genuine Christmas message. If all else fails I rely on popular television to drum some sort of ethics into my children!
Once we have a tree, and decorations, and she realizes that the stocking and the presents are the same here as they were in England, I doubt if she will even register the difference in temperature. If it's hot I guess we might get the paddling pool out - now that would be a novelty to an English child on Christmas Day! And I might, eventually, lose the feeling that Christmas isn't Christmas unless it's drizzling and/or sleeting, possibly foggy, and getting dark at 3pm.

Judy Edmonds was born in England, grew up in Australia and is married to Graham Peters, a fifth-generation Australian. From 1990-1999 they lived in England - it was meant to be a two year working holiday but it took on a life of its own. They returned to Australia in May 1999, and are enjoying readjusting. Judy worked as an academic librarian until the birth of Tamsin in 1993, and since then has been a full-time mother to her and to Angus, born 1996. She is now embarking on a new career as a freelance journalist. Her writing can be found all over the Internet now, and she is the owner/editor of an Australian parenting EZine, Chloe & Jack.