Christmases past and present.

A little while back I wrote a couple of pieces about being the Grinch of Halloween and the Grinch of Guy Fawkes. But when it comes to Christmas I can assure you there is no Grinch here. I love pretty much everything about it, other than the commercialisation - bah humbug to that.

First and foremost of course it’s about family, spending time together. Stopping regular life for a bit and taking the time to catch up. For many of us, especially with people living in different places, it might be the only time of the year we’re all together.

I’d like to tell you about Christmas in my family, feel free of course to add your own memories and thoughts below.

In the lead up to the big day my sisters and I would wait until mum’s car drove out of the driveway - that was the chance. In the cupboard under the stairs is where the presents would be, they always were, not yet wrapped and fully available for perusing. One year I was getting a handheld Space Invaders game called Astro Wars, I spent weeks taking it out of the box and playing with it, then returning it to the box before Mum was home. I don’t know if she ever found out but she is a regular reader so no doubt I’ll find out on Sunday!

Too many for one photo - the Rockel women 2019, not long before Covid arrived.

Also in the lead up there was the preparation of the Christmas cake. I remember the large roasting dish with the dried fruit soaking in it ahead of time. Then of course everyone had to come and have a stir of the cake. Finally it would go into the oven and mum would stay up late to take it out. I always wondered why she didn’t cook it earlier in the evening - I guess she was quite busy.

In the lounge there would be a real tree, forever the smell of Christmas. I recall one year my mates and I, guess we were about 16, driving out to the forest south of Rotorua with an axe. Finding the best tree we could and then driving home with it hanging out the window.

Christmas Eve we all went to Dad’s sock drawer and found the largest woollen sock we could find and put it on the end of our bed. When we awoke of course it would be full, I guess it was implied somewhere along the way that Santa might be involved but I can’t recall it ever being spoken about.

Always the last thing in our Christmas stocking, other kids called them Santa Sacks - but not us, was an Orange. An effort by my mother to have us eat some actual food not just lollies, still love Oranges.

And the Rockel men the same year.

There would be little presents like caps, I remember we didn’t have cap gun so we’d hit them on the concrete driveway with a hammer. It sounds a bit retarded these days - kids sitting around making bang noises with a hammer. I guess we’re not supposed to use the “R” word these days but it was very common when I was a kid. Political Correctness had definitely not been invented. Anyone else remember rubbing your eyelid up and down with your first finger saying “Rubella”?

I also recall one year there was a can of Slime, which was the big thing at the time. I put some in my sister’s hair and it couldn’t be gotten out. My father in a fit of anger took the present and buried it under the Rhododendron tree. I remember watching where he buried it, but I never dug it up.

After the stockings we had a long wait while Dad was on the loo, Jesus it seemed to take forever. We were allowed to open one present each while we waited.

You wouldn’t open the one from Grandpa, that was always one to open with the family. Sid would buy things, obscure things, great sales, throughout the year and then you would get a whole bunch of these things in a gift. Not individually wrapped, that wouldn’t have occurred, but in one great pile that exploded across the floor when you ripped off the paper that had been holding it back.

Mum and Dad.

Mum and Dad always gave us separate gifts, I’m not sure why - I guess they liked to, it never really occurred to me. Dad’s Christmas wrapping was much like Sid’s - place the gifts on the paper, hold them down - don’t let any escape. Now smother them in paper until you can’t see them then wrap approximately three rolls of sellotape around the gift ensuring they are securely contained. The difference being Sid’s gifts contained odd shapes that were hard to wrap, Dad’s gifts were always books - which are really not that hard to wrap. A lot of laughter was had over his wrapping.

Christmas lunch was often at a hotel, we seldom ate at restaurants as kids - I don’t think any families we knew did. But for years we’d go out to a Christmas smorgasbord, most often to what was the THC or International, the white concrete monstrosity close to Whaka for those of you who know Rotorua. Mum had clearly decided along the line that spending all day slaving in the kitchen rather than taking part was not fun. So we’d put on our best clothes, it was the one time a year I’d have an ironed shirt, and off we’d go.

Dad would take a cigar, he never smoked the rest of the year but when we’d go to the hotel after lunch, as the rest of us sat groaning about how full we were, he’d pop off to a little table in the garden, smoke a cigar and perhaps do some writing.

Christmas evening would be catching up with friends and then on boxing day we’d usually have a picnic with the Hoskins, our closest family friends. My favourite Christmas was at their house, they were like extended family although I think that was the only year we had Christmas lunch together.

Christmas at the Hoskins’, I’m in the black t-shirt.

Some of you might recall I wrote about the death of Andrew, the father of the family, earlier this year. I remember that year I bought him a cask of White Russian from my paper run money as a Christmas gift. I had a special relationship with him - but then so did everyone that knew him. Each Christmas he would send out a long letter to friends sharing family events from the last year.

I remember the first Christmas I had overseas away from family. Fi and I were living in Shepherd’s Bush in a large tower of flats, just like the one at Grenfell. It wasn’t flash. The windows, which were just above the radiators, wouldn’t shut so you were paying all this money for heating that was streaming out the window. I remember having to stand in line repeatedly that winter to get electricity on the prepay card at the Post Office.

I was very pleased with myself buying a real Christmas tree from a lady selling them outside the tube station to the central line, then carrying it home and thinking - where on earth am I going to get a bucket of dirt from to put it in? I found that a couple of floors up there was a communal garden area. Well I say garden, but there weren’t any plants. So I borrowed a bucket of dirt for a couple of weeks, the old spirit of liberating a pine tree from the forest with my mates still alive.

Alex, Emma, and I with a friend in the winter wonderland of Wembley

The weirdest Christmas I ever had was in 1998, Fi and I were on an 11 week trip in South America. We travelled a lot once upon a time and this was far and away my favourite travel experience. The countries down south that we visited Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Paraguay were all fascinating but the real highlights were further north in Bolivia and Peru.

That Christmas Day we were in Cuzco in Peru, the ancient Incan capital. We’d booked time slots at the local phone centre so we could call home on the day at an exorbitant rate per minute. Seems like a million years ago to imagine walking into a phone place and filling in a form to book a phone call on a landline. The internet was pretty basic back then, social media hadn’t been invented, there was no messaging or video calls, pretty much just emails.

Our Christmas present to ourselves was to stay in an upmarket hotel as a luxury. If you saw it you wouldn’t call it luxury but it had cable tv and it’s own bathroom with hot running water. It was $25 USD per night, about double what we were paying most of the time. We stayed in bed late and watched the movie Babe - I recall thinking this really doesn’t work as a Xmas movie  - it’s about an adorable talking ham!

For our Christmas dinner we went to a Chinese restaurant with a family from Fulham we had met that day, it was certainly not traditional. If Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Peru sounds odd, for Fi’s birthday a few weeks before we’d had an Indian curry at a Danish restaurant in Bolivia - you had to order the curry the day before!

Thea and Matty decorating the tree fresh from a swim.

Many memories of our own family now of course, this will be our 15th Christmas in this house and so we have our own traditions. Thea is very much our Christmas fairy and takes charge decorating the tree and doing much of the wrapping.

This year my wife’s brother Greg and his family will be here for Xmas from the UK they tend to come every second year. His wife Nadine and he spent many years living in the Netherlands, their big thing is Christmas Eve so we’ll be round at Fi’s mum’s at Bucklands Beach with them for that tomorrow.

Christmas morning will be here, we don’t do stockings any more - the children are non-believers. But we’ll have presents and the children will eat sugar. Mid morning we’ll be at my sister’s place on the shore with Mum and Dad and my other Sister and her husband and all the cousins. My mother will precede every present opening by saying “if you don’t like it I’ve got the receipt and you can change it”, to my knowledge no one ever has. 

My mum with Matty, Thea, and Johnny 2014

We’ll be seeing Emma and Ollie on the 27th, they’ll be celebrating with her mum on the day. I’m not actually sure where my eldest boy Alex is, last sighted in Bali. No doubt his partner Ella will pop up on social media.

We’ll be seeing our dear friends the Llewellyns at some point. They lived across the road from us most of the time we’ve been here and our kids have grown up together, just like we did with the Hoskins. Our dogs will be in heaven out at their place in the country with chickens and sheep, large eels, and loads of room to explore.

Later in the evening on Christmas Day Mrs Klaus and I will smile at each other and think of how lucky we are. I’ll put on a cheesy Christmas movie she’ll have some wine and cheese, I’ll eat too many chocolates and all will be right with the world.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, time with those you love. Like me, and the lyrics from that Tim Minchin song about White Wine in the Sun, I imagine you won’t be too fussed about presents.

It’s all about the people.

In recent newsletters I’ve included two favourite Christmas songs by Tim Minchin and Paul Kelly. Of the more traditional songs “Have yourself a Merry little Christmas”, means a lot to me. My eldest son Alex had a bear that played that song on his very first Christmas.