Columne the Sixthe

Yes, yes, I know I skipped the fifth one. It seems a little late now considering it was an advisory piece against wasting all your money on cheap plastic crap for your kids at Christmas. Hmmm.

We're tucked away in a small pocket of glorious here in the Tasmanian countryside. Across the horizon lies Mt Roland, and it's really rather impressive against the rolling green caressing my eyes.

Tasmania is indeed a tiny slice of heaven on earth.

Here's the article that appeared in Sunday's paper. It carries a Kleenex warning. Seriously, some dude I went to school with emailed me on facebook to tell me a man wasn't supposed to cry while reading the paper.

Clearly, my voodoo power is strong.*

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First published 23/12/2007
the Sunday Mail



Christmas, 1984. My sister Charlotte is teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Mary's having a bit of a diva moment in the bathroom and Joseph's teatowel keeps slipping off his head. Lambs run through the house bleating and, despite Charlotte's assertive directions to the guests, people are dilly dallying about taking their places. The only thing not causing a ruckus is the donkey.

As the director barks her final orders at the cast, Jesus: The Loungeroom Spectacular edges closer towards its debut. With lights dimmed and the audience finally settled, a nightie clad pint-sized Mary (me) enters stage right on the back of a 6"5 bearded donkey named Steve. I've got two bright circles of very unimmaculate pink rouge plonked on my cheeks, frosted blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick. Behind me is Joseph (played to great acclaim by my brother), going about the arduous task of requesting lodgings for the night. We've opted for more of an interpretation of the nativity story rather than strict historical accuracy, because the myopic Joseph is wearing some turbo specs. Beneath me, Steve the Donkey grins at the crowd, playing it for laughs. Wiseass.

As her family prances and laughs on stage, in the dark my mother snaps away, collecting the photographs that will illustrate this event for me more than twenty years later. I don't need a photograph of her that day to tell you that she was beautiful. She always looked beautiful.

Christmas, 1988. My father photographs my mother reaching to place a bauble on the top of the tree. Charlotte and Toby are 'helping' by draping huge swathes of tinsel around the tree's middle. I'm fighting sleep in the armchair, determined to stay up and experience as much Christmas magic as possible. Outside, the Arabian heat blankets the earth. We're thousands of miles away from that loungeroom nativity scene, yet our family remains as playful as ever.

Christmas, 1992. The English winter has delicately dusted snow across the common outside our house. Bing Crosby serenades my mother as she puts the final touches on her tree. This year, she's foregone the tacky tinsel favoured by us as children and decorated it for herself. It's a truly spectacular sight, and she's proud as she brings my father into show him. As he looks at her, he thinks to himself, is it possible to love this woman any more than I already do?

Christmas, 2005. We have our extended family travel from all corners of the country to spend the festive period with us. My parents are due to head back to the Middle East for work, and this party is a celebratory send off. My sister brings a karaoke machine, to great cheer! Dad will only sing Johnny Cash, but my mother defies audience desire and sings 'The Rose' four or five times - always to my father. One day, I hope to share a love half as expansive. I have a photograph of them dancing and looking into each other's eyes. In their minds, their adventure is just beginning.

Christmas, 2006. We laugh, we dance, we sing, we play.

We ignore the fact that this year's party will be her last.

Christmas, 2007. Steve the Donkey, pink cheeked Mary, myopic Joseph and Director Charlotte will be tucked away in Launceston. Together, we'll hold each other's hands through the difficult task of spending our first Christmas without the woman who bound us to each other with cords of love and kindness, who made every celebration a party, and whose beauty radiated from within. We loved her more than we can possibly hope to love another again.

In May, my mother died following a brief and agressive battle with liver cancer. She was 57. I miss her every day, sometimes with a force so crushing it threatens to overhwhelm me. Tuesday will be an incredibly hard day for my family, but we're fortunate in that we share a lot of love. My mother gave that to us.

This Christmas, the best gift you can give your family is your love. Tell them you love them. Tell them everyday. Death comes like a thief in the night, and there is never enough time to say all the things you want to say.


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More Tasmanian travel tales to follow shortly. Catch this Sunday's paper to read my cautionary tale against New Year's Eve crapness.


Peace out (and get thee to a travel agent so that you too might enjoy driving past Gunns' plantations and tutting disapprovingly)

* to be clear, it was a very nice email indeed.