Christmas In a Foreign Land
This is NOT a depressing post. It's not, it's not, I promise. Or I don't mean it to be. It's just a navel-gazing post, as most of mine invariably are. OK, as ALL of them are.
Well, that was Christmas. Himself is already back to work, having had the princely amount of ONE day off. Working in Retail, of course, he really never has much time off to speak off around Christmas, since it's the busiest time of year in that industry and all hands are needed on deck. It's fine, but it doesn't make for a long, relaxed festive season, you know? I know, I know, tiny violin time, etc.
Christmas far away from home is weird - and I'm trying to put my finger on exactly WHY it's so weird. Don't get me wrong, it's not HEARTBREAKING and Made-For-TV-Movieworthy (which, OMG, there were SO MANY random, shitty Christmas movies on during the day this week. I am looking forward to BEING AT WORK and not having to watch daytime TV anymore. Woot!). Yesterday was perfectly pleasant - Himself and I just spent the whole day pottering around at a leisurely pace in our pyjamas. We had our traditional Christmas Day breakfast of croissants, various mini danish pastries fresh from the oven, DELISHUS BACON, and mimosas. The mimosas soon gave way to being straightforward glasses of bubbly with wild hibiscus flowers in them, because I had always wanted to try it and treated mself to a jar of the beautiful preserved flowers as a speshul treat for being a Good Girl and getting a Proper Job. Yay!
PS - they were yum. Although it should be noted that all the hype about the bubbles unfurling the flower in your glass? Nonsense. The flowers stay exactly in the vaguely curled up flower shape they came out of the jar in. But it's OK, because they look very pretty and exotic and indulgent anyway. And the sugary syrup they are preserved in makes your glass of bubbly taste faintly of Karkaday, which is totally OK with me. EATING the flowers is a bit weird - they're a little tougher than you might expect, and the taste is really just "sweet" rather than any kind of actual hibiscus flavour. ANYWAY...
Before we knew it, an entire bottle of bubbly had been polished off over brunch. So, I am rilly sorry New Zealand Fire Department. I HAVE been listening to your advice about Not Drinking and Frying, and I honestly take it seriously even though I find it kind of amusing, but I may have been a bit squiffy when I started cooking Christmas dinner. *scuffs feet and stares at floor*
Anyway, we had roast pork, which we basted with an experimental glaze of finely chopped (well... mooshed really) pineapple and sweet chilli sauce. It was tasty, but sadly none of the flavour really got past the surface of the meat. Boo. Nothing else was really fussed over - I roasted a couple of kumara for himself because he is kind of addicted to them, and made some mustard potato salad. Oh, and some asparagus. And we generally just nibbled over some picky finger foody type things we got - cheese and pate and crackers and fruit pastes and whatnot. Since it was just us, we didn't stand on much pomp or ceremony or TIMINGS or anything. We Skyped with both sets of parents, and ate our profiteroles at about 11 o'clock at night before waddling our swollen bellies into bed.
Sounds fine, yes? And it was. But... it just felt like we were having a nice lazy day off. It didn't feel Christmassy. Not even on Skype with the folks, with their Christmas trees twinkling in the background. So what's the deal?!
I used to make a really BIG SHITTY DEAL about Christmas. Seriously. My Christmas treet is seven foot tall. I stopped counting at the 300-mark of how many baubles there were, and that was several years ago (I acquire a few new ones every year, generally). There are BOXES of other decorations - swags and garlands and fuck knows what else, all in storage back home. I used to LOVE Christmas shopping, and was one of those super irritating people who spent AGES doing it, fussing over what was JUST PERFECT for so-and-so. I thought Gift Cards or vouchers were OF TEH DEVIL because it showed NO THOUGHT on the part of the gift giver. Gifts I bought had to be absolutely something I thought the recipient would just about wet their pants with joy over, because I loved seeing the look on their faces. I used to sweat all day over a MASSIVE Christmas dinner in my tiny, tiny apartment kitchen so that I could feed the hell out my mum and stepdad, setting the table with appropriately festive coloured tableclothes and place settings and CANDLES and SEQUINNY CONFETTI and crackers and fuck knows what else.
Now? Yeah, not so much. And it's been that way for a couple of years. Christmas 2003 we lost my stepdad, so Christmas just Did Not Happen that year (spaghetti on toast round at mum's place because I wanted to be sure she got out of bed that day). Christmas 2004, as the First Aniversary Year, we went out for Christmas Dinner to a Moroccan restaurant I dance at at the tme, thinking that with it being a MOROCCAN restaurant it wouldn't be cheesy and Christmassy and we wouldn't have an empty chair to focus on. Uh, WRONG. I think we all just wanted to shoot ourselves that year. Christmas 2005 we went on holiday to Sharm el Sheik which was to herald the start of the end of my relationship with The Asshat Ex. Christmas 2006 was my first Christmas as a single person and I honest-to-god don't remember anything about it. I think I stayed home? On my own? Or something? Honestly, I have absolutely NO recollection of it. I know I didn't get the tree out of storage, because OMG THIS IS AWFUL, I AM DUMPED AND ABANDONED AND THIS HOUSE AND ALL THESE DECORATIONS REMIND ME OF HIM, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH. I suspect I just did the Christmas Is Not Happening thing again that year. In early 2007 I met Himself, and Christmas 2007 I put my (claimed as MY, dammit, not "used to be OURS *sob sob*") tree back up again and got into the festive spirit and wore a pretty red dress to his mum's house for a small family Christmas dinner. Yay!
Christmas 2008 we were frantic with packing for our January 5 flight to New Zealand, OMG, what the hell are we doing? YOU NEED TO SELL YOUR FLAT, and I need to pack a case, and where are all these boxes going to gooooooo?! So... yeah, we didn't really notice Christmas that year because we were insanely busy making Random Massive Decisions to move halfway across the world for no reason other than I hated my job and wanted a change. WIN! I think! No presents because all of our money needed to be on a bank statement to prove to NZ Immigration that we could suport ourselves (Pfft! Nobody even CHECKED our paperwork - I suspect because we are Nice Average-looking White People, and not Suspiciously Bearded or Brown. Excllent job, Airport people!).
Christmas 2009 was in Christchurch, New Zealand - our first summer Christmas. We didn't do the tree thing and all that because we didn't have one, but we were able to do presents again at least. We went to the beach because it seemed to be the Thing To Do in a summer Christmas, and it was very novel and differenty and awesome. We had a barbecue behind the dunes (probably illegal fire hazard! Oops!). I got sunburnt. We ate cherries, because they are Traditional Christmas Fare, which is hugely entertaining to a person who thinks of cherries as a Rare Expensive Imported Summer Treat. We were taken in by our friends (originally my work colleague, but now very good mates), who slotted us in to their Family Christmas Meal because we were poor immigranty waifs (har!), and it was all very nice - but NOT terribly "Christmassy" feeling.
This year, nobody feels the need to take us in as waifs and strays which is absolutely A-OK with us. The Christmas decorations have given us many LOLs and WTF moments - particularly because they all have SNOWFLAKES and POLAR BEARS and PENGUINS and such on them. Penguins is actually OK, since you can actually SEE real live, in-the-wild penguins here in New Zealand. They are incredibly, incredibly cute and I may be on some kind of Do Not Allow In list in Oamaru because I wanted to steal their little blue penguins and take them home to live in a paddling pool in my garden. WHAT?! They would have had all the fish they could eat! They would have lived like KINGS, I tell you! Hell damn ass kings!
*ahem*
Aaaaaaaaanyway, I'm thinking there's probably a few reasons why it doesn't feel like Christmas to me anymore at the moment, and here's my list:
Problem 1: BAGGAGE
I've had a few shit Christmasses - as a family, as a single person. I guess it does add up, although I am not Phoebe Cates in Gremlins or anything, OMFG.
Problem 2: WRONG TIME OF YEAR
I'm so sorry, New Zealand, but I don't think I will EVER get accustomed to Christmas in the summertime. And I'm sure everyone back home or in the snowbound places of the US is rolling their eyeballs at me right now and thinking: "Oh no, POOR ME, Christmas at the fucking beach is just SO WEIRD. What a bitch!" and you'd definitely be partially justified at least, even though I love you and you're being MEEN TO ME AT CHRISTMAS WHEN I AM FAR FROM MY FAMILY. (Who feels like a bitch now eh?! BOOYAH! Headshot!)
Other ex-pats I've spoken to (because, you know, we can SNIFF EACH OTHER OUT) feel the same way, although most of them for some weird coincidental reason have been here for 2 years just like us. Perhaps year three will be different? Hm? Who knows.
Don't get me wrong, Christmas in the summer has SO MANY ADVANTAGES (eyeroll eyeroll, there she goes, fucking rubbing it in. I hate her so much, why am I reading her fucking journal anyway?!) - being able to go outside. Without a jacket. To DO THINGS. It's like a mega holiday - it's Christmas, so everything is shut and everybody's off, but it's also SUMMERTIME! When there's ice creams to eat and places to go! Yay! It's kind of neat, but.... NOT CHRISTMASSY.
Problem 3: LACK OF TEH MONIES
Listen up kids - in case you didn't get the message from the made-for-TV Christmas movies, which are essentially a million and one career-killing variations on THE SAME FUCKING STORY and theme, Christmas is not about teh pressies. Or the massive feast. It's about GIVING.
Yeah. I can't actually be making with the giving right now, what with the extreme and rather scary poverty. Thank Oprah Winfrey there was Good News, Everyone recently in that I know this is purely a short-term situation because I haz a job now. But still, there is NO money in the pot to buy my significant other a present. And that makes me really, really sad - because I WANT to buy him a present. Because I feel like we almost don't really care about each other because we can't even buy something little to say "I loves you, even though we are poor". I *want* to be able to get him something special to show that I appreciate him and how he stands by me like a big, hulking, scary rock - particularly during the last incredibly stressful six months. And I can't.
We'll hit the sales with my first pay and we'll buy each other something nice and have our Very Own Private Christmas but... yeah. Not on Christmas Day, with the Christmassiness. O_O
Problem 4: LACK OF FAMBLY
You know what else Christmas is legitimately "about", don't you kids? NO, NOT PRESENTS, JIMMY - you turn your seat right around this instant and sit in the Naughty Corner. By jove, it's COAL for you this year I swear.
Anyway, Christmas is also about FAMILY! And TOGETHERNESS! And all sorts of other vomit-inducing sentiments!
I don't have the kind of family that is even REMOTELY about togetherness. Because my god, there would be a knife fight of the dun dun duuun duuun duun DUUUN DUN-DUN-DUN proportions, and the victor would take on other challengers until there was no-one left. I haven't spoken to one entire side (dad's... ALL of them) of my family for just over 10 years now, and to the majority of the other for probably about 8 years. My family (by MY definition) comprises.... my mum. That's it. And the wider family circle includes her partner, Himself and his mum and brother. That's the ENTIRE wider family right there. LOADS, eh?! I AM OVERRUN WITH FAMBLY!
Or not, of course, because they are all Over There and I am Over Here.
I have a very wide circle of friends, but I'm VERY much the kind of person who likes to have physical contact with my friends. I missed wooglethealien (hi buddy! About to overshare stuff you didn't know about in a public forum! Yay!) terribly much when she moved from Ediburgh to London. We didn't hang out ALL THE TIME or anything, but I still missed being able to SEE her and laugh with her IN PERSON instead of over emails.
My very best friend, who I used to see VERY frequently (there was usually shopping [shoes] and food and snark involved), is NOT an emailly person. So I think in the two years I've been away has emailed me all of twice. It hurts. A lot, actually. I've given up on emailing her since I feel like I'm talking into a bloody black hole and getting zip in return. And I feel SUPER GUILTY about that, because it was her birthday at the start of December and I totally fucking forgot. Some friend I am.
It probably also doesn't help that I've got another very good friend who I've been Messengering a lot lately. He's going through a bit of shit and self-doubt right now, and I hate the fact that I'm limited to typing consolatory things on a screen. I am reduced to words. Which... hey, as you can see from THE LENGTH OF THIS ENTRY, HOLY FUCK... I am quite good at. But when a friend is in trouble or in need I was always the one jumping in the car at Batshit Crazy o'clock and turning up on their doorstep with hugs and food or an escape vehicle or whatever. I can't DO that anymore and it's really hard. I suppose it's good practise - I need to break my habit of needing to FIX THINGS all the time. But I don't like it.
Problem 5: LACK OF PERIPHERAL HOO-HAH
This probably doesn't justify a seperate heading, because it's kind of an amalgamation of the others.
There's no build-up to Christmas. No counting down days. No steady ramping up of enthusiasm. I don't have my friends and family to see and to plot over what I'm buying them or to listen to their Christmas Shopping Insanity stories or to make plans with.
The weather's all wrong - there's no steady dwindling of daylight hours, and dark nights of shopping in brightly-lit streets and malls with twinkly fair lights. There's no steadily increasingly cold nights to make for increasingly snuggliness and higher levels of Hot Chocolate intake.
There's no Christmas Tree. Well, there's PUBLIC Christmas Trees, but they're outside IN THE SUMMERTIME, looking all weird and crazy-looking. Exhibit A: one of my favourites of the pictures Himself took last year when we went to Picton:
Pretty much sums it up.
I don't have MY tree, with MY decorations that I've been gathering ever since I moved into my very first Own Place 14 years ago. I don't have those reminders and routines and rituals to go through - Christmas sneaks up on me and I've no time to go around getting all my Christmas Spirit shit together.
Those, I think, are the crux of the matter. I don't really know what I can do about them - certainly Problem 1 is probably never going to completely go away. I don't know how long Problem 2 will be present, because who knows what will happen after my current visa runs out in August 2012? I might only have Christmas 2011 in New Zealand before being presented with a bitchingly ass-freezing Blighty Christmas - which YOU KNOW I will still totally complain about because I Am Scottish And We Like To Complain About Stuff. Problem 3 should definitely be resolved for next year what with the TWO INCOMES (woot!) and everything, and Problem 4 should even be partly remedied because (maybe... just MAYBE, fingers crossed all being well etc etc) Whizmum is going to be visiting and staying with us over the Christmas period. Woo hoo!
I'm not UNHAPPY with what I have, I want y'all to know that. I had a very nice, relaxing day yesterday, in my beautiful home (whch I love very much and don't have to countenance moving out of soon because I have A JOB! Woot!), with my lovely partner, and I got lots of nice text messages and emails and stuff from friends across the world (which briefly made me feel very GLAM and INTERNATIONAL and whatnot). The New Year sees a new job and a new sense of purpose and I'm incredibly grateful, feel very lucky, and VERY excited.
So to anyone still reading this lengthy, lengthy waffle, I wish you and yours a very HAPPY Christmas even if it's not a really CHRISTMASSY Christmas, and a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year. And I HUG ON YOU super awkwardly across the interwebs.
LOVE!
~Me
kiss kiss kiss