Early December

Ok, so now that I’m a respectable six weeks behind myself like all busy-wives-and-mothers, and I’ve finally begun to kick that persistent flu (like a noisy American tourist on a coach tour, it just wouldn’t go away), I guess it’s back to news of the adventure thus far… now where was I…?

Well we made it back from Boston in jolly good humour and before you know it, December is upon us. At last, the miles of wildly festooned Christmas decorations about the city finally make sense (anytime before and they look too eager, too desperate, “C’mon, let it be Christmas, please, please, puh-leeeeese,” the subtext being ‘spend, spend, spend’).

Now not having had anything to do for the last few months (move to another country, settle into a new place, find a school, heal everyone’s emotional scars, figure out Halloween and Thanksgiving and join in with the locals, feed, clothe and amuse the family, carry on being the perfect wife and mother – as if – etc. etc.) you’d think I’d have had the jump on Christmas. But no. No puddings made, no gifts purchased, no cards written. Nada, as they used to say (and still do here – massive re-runs) on Seinfeld. In fact, the first of December was really the first day I started to think about getting a tree, finding decorations (did I bring any or did they get left out of the packing at the last minute?), what to have for Christmas lunch, who needed gifts and what to get them if they made the list, how many cards to write – all the work of women the Christian world over.

The first of December was also the date I realised I would have my Mother-in-law with us in a week or so, for a week or so, and that my sister-in-law would follow soon after for Christmas itself and that I wasn’t organised for houseguests either. Not a lot of spare beds and blankets in our very basic corporate loan set-up, and it’s beginning to get very cold at nights. Suddenly December started to feel like it was going to be very busy and I could feel the rising panic most of the 52% of the population who do Christmas feel at this time of the year. I think we all get swept away on a tide of seasonal panic (apologies to those in South East Asia, India and Somalia who would prefer no watery metaphors – you genuinely have my deepest sympathy) but there it is, one of the hazards of the affluent West, if only the rest of the world had it so easy.

First things first, I needed a plan. I love a good plan, especially one that comes with lots of list making. Given the time frame – US Postal service had decreed everything one wanted to send to Australia had to be posted before the 17th of December or it would be late, and even then some of it was really late anyway – the first list was Christmas Cards. And to be safe in case I forgot anyone, a short Happy Holidays blog to be written before the big day as well. Then there was the gift list. If I was at home I have my set of usual suspects that gets a wee something from our household. And now that there are a bunch more children under our radar, something for the kiddies was even more important. But I had to consider that added to the cost of gift purchase was the exorbitant postage fees the US postal service extracts for boxes and packages. In some cases they proved to be greater than the cost of the gift itself. In fact, if you received an empty box, count the postage as having sucked up all your gift allowance. A nifty idea that suited all and sundry saw the gift issue sorted out with a quick trip to New York city with Mother-in-law later the following week. Finding time to write cards and letters was a little more difficult, especially once the houseguests came on board, but I made it with a minute to spare, and with minor exceptions (friends who live somewhere outside the boondocks, halfway to the black stump) most stuff arrived in time for Christmas.

Local gift recipients were another matter all together. Now you’d think that wouldn’t be a great number of people, after all we’ve only been here five minutes. But hang on, there’s that great American tradition of the Christmas tip. There are about twenty staff working in our building, who coincidentally made their presence known by putting hand-signed Thanksgiving and Christmas cards under each of our doors, apparently a none-too-subtle attempt to remind us that ’tis the season of giving. Now I’m not a stingy person, but after checking Emily Post’s guide to Christmas tipping on the internet, and watching a news item on TV about the same, I decided that over $400USD in cash to a bunch of people I don’t even know, for services I’ve barely used, wasn’t going to be coming out of our Christmas allowance. Besides, none of them know who we are beyond ‘The Australians’ and even after making an effort and introduce ourselves all by name in the first week, the door person spent three months calling me Dolores for some unfathomable reason. No tip there, Rodriguez (not a real name).

But I can’t be churlish at Christmas, so I hand-made twenty brown sugar shortbread gift packs and delivered them to the lobby with a Christmas card. I note I have not been called Dolores since. Whether because of the gift or the card signature, I do not know. Nor care. Dolores has left the building.

But giving goes beyond the home and into the school as well. So all the school teachers required a small gesture, and that’s what they got. Again, cooking skills to the fore, I surprised them with Christmas puddings. I figured I was making one for us, so what’s another half a dozen? They really loved it, as surprise, surprise, Americans don’t generally do Christmas pud. And didn’t I find that out when it came to sourcing ingredients and pudding bags. I should’ve worked it out. It’s not like it’s news that they do food here differently, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before. But a bit of clever shopping (calico at WalMart – bless ’em for a little of everything), a lot of good luck (an Australian pudding recipe that doesn’t use suet turned up in a magazine I’d brought with me) and purchase of another large pot and it was puddings away. Christmas was in progress. Well, it was underway, it had left the harbour, but was wobbling precariously, and much of the promise of tasks to be completed (as this blog would suggest they were) was actually a long way from being realised.