Category: Christmas

Antarctica was full of pranks
occasionally funny
sometimes spiteful
Invariably juvenile : unsurprising –
the base often wore the costume of a fraternity house
or boarding school dormitory.

Disclaimer: I walked right into it –
vegetarian sandwiches labelled for the flight home
should never have been left unattended.
Gotcha,
jalapeno juice – lift bread pour over
hot – very hot – in edible
the fight long and slow – strong winds
11 hours plus three since chow
hungry, very hungry.
Still some satisfaction
the perpetrator never got to see my frustration.

A decade later
another time, another place
a private hospital : the perpetrator’s father a patient
open and shut the surgeon called it, only prayer.

8.30 a.m. Christmas morning
as he cannot go to them, they have come to him
10 or 12 siblings, nephews and nieces
the charge nurse asks me
can you do Christmas lunch for them
she understands if I can’t – lack of notice etc
there are only four working
it will be a long, very long, day.
“Sure.” I say.

“ Olwyn,”
an old-fashioned name, from another time
formal and proper – an old aunt
It is. And was.
My father’s sister
the last of the women who never went to church
or anywhere,
without hat and gloves.

She had no children
or whim
disciplined in thought, appearance and diet,
she would have declined the Garden of Eden apple.
Still,
she requested of my mother
ideas for children’s Christmas treats
all suggestions were thought ….. “ not very special
something they like – just for Christmas.”

Soft drinks said my mother
phosphorescent sparkle of sugar and colour
yet to be commodity
more than expensive – extravagant
dreamed of by five children
except
between Boxing Day and New Year
every night, one per night
every year of childhood.
Only at Christmas,
only from Olwyn.

He began the story, then paused
saying he definitely wasn’t the oldest,
or plumpest.
He couldn’t say he was the kindliest either,
he would like to,
but the truth was
he was actually the slowest –
the slowest to pass the buck,
the slowest to find an excuse, or reason not to.

So, there he was,
decked out in whiskers and a red suit,
in the hottest part of the country,
at almost the hottest time of year,
being Santa at the children’s Christmas party,
handing out sweets and gifts,
listening to wishes of train sets and Barbie dolls.
He thought he’d made a pretty good fist of it …
until the job report came in
and
one kid told his parents,
Father Christmas sounded just like John Hayward –
“ when he was being stupid.”