Two more sleeps

I often I think the best part about Christmas is the anticipation.  I've never lost that joyous tingle of anticipation that I had as a child.  Although, as the oldest of a large family (there were 12 of us), I was expected to curb my excitement and help keep the younger siblings from getting too strung out, to get them settled in bed at night, counting down the sleeps.  I might have suppressed it, but, believe me, it was well and truly there.  

It was never about the gifts because what we received wasn't very impressive when compared to some others but we were aware that another family in our street received the same sort of gifts that we did but we had a father and they didn't.  So we knew we were better off by far.  We knew their presents came from Legacy, a wonderful Australian institution that supports Australian Defence Force families to carry on with their lives after the loss or injury of their loved one.  We remembered being told Mr Cook had died from injuries suffered during the war and the sorrow we felt for the Cook kids.  We knew something was wrong when the nuns asked the Cook children to return home as we finished our morning assembly at school.  We didn't call it that, can't remember what it was called but it happened at the start of the school day and it had never happened before for children to be told to go back home.  Imagine those children, I think 4 of the 6 children had started school, walking the mile back home.  Surely they wondered what was going on.  I often think about that.

(Getting off the track a bit but my father became the Cook kids' substitute father figure when one of them played up.  Mrs Cook would send one of her brood up the street with a note for Dad telling him what the naughty child had done and expecting him to provide the discipline she found difficult.  Dad hated doing it but saw it as his Christian duty.  He was a very good man!)

Somewhere along the line I must have been gifted a doll.  I don't remember that happening but I do remember opening a gift of hand made clothes for my doll, made from the same material as one of my grandmother's dresses.  I adored my Gran and couldn't have been more thrilled.  I can imagine my mother and Gran having a chat and Gran offering to lighten the load for my mother by making me some doll's clothes.  I don't know if my daughters realize how I loved making the time to make clothes for their dolls, I always thought of it as the biggest possible expression of love.  I was a busy mum when they were young but at least I still had good eyesight and could sew after they were in bed at night, something that would be out of the question now.

Today I did my grocery shopping for Christmas. Such a tame build up compared to when I was a child and the excitement would go up a notch on Christmas Eve as Gran called for volunteers to help catch and kill the ducks and hens we would feast on.  It wasn't really volunteering, when Gran said, "Who's coming to help?" it was like a royal command and I just can't imagine anyone refusing.  Gran would be prosecuted by SPCA these days.  First of all there would be mayhem in the chookhouse as we chased and caught prospective victims and took them to Gran for inspection.  I swear she vetoed the first five or six presented to her just for the fun of it.  The final decision made, she'd then have one of us hold the duck or chook over the chopping block while she chopped off its head.  I was glad when one of the others was old enough to undertake that task, it seemed like I'd had to do it forever.  Then she'd let the bird free to run around without it's head until it dropped, by which time we would have scattered far and wide - up on the shed roof, down the gully beside the house, out into the cow paddock, up the back to the cow shed.  And Gran would be having a great old laugh.  

When we felt it was safe to return, we'd get on with the plucking and gutting of the birds.  I didn't mind the gutting, it was easy enough to close my eyes, pretend I couldn't smell it and get on with it but I absolutely hated plucking.  The monotony of it!

The thrill of Christmas was about having that special sit down hot feast in the middle of the day (in the heat of Queensland summer) with all of us and our grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins.  Christmas pudding with coins to be discovered and Gran's homemade icecream.  Doing the dishes after the meal with everyone in good spirits, then a quiet time before a swim in the creek - if we were lucky and there had been recent rain.  Cricket in the paddock beside the house followed by the first watermelons of the annual crop.  Other relatives arriving during the afternoon to visit for a while, laughter, happiness.  And the perfect end to the perfect day was one of the uncles playing the mouth organ (harmonica), the farm dogs howling their objection noisily and then, if we were very lucky, we'd hear dingoes howling back up in the mountains at the back of the house.

I don't think a Christmas has gone by since those wonderful days of my childhood without me remembering the dingoes howling.  It's a sound I've never heard since but one I carry with me still.

I took a photo on the way home from the supermarket.  It was a dull, overcast day.  The freshly mowed hay paddocks add a patchwork effect.

And look, fresh tomatoes for Christmas.  I am now enjoying the first of this year's crop.  Not quite the same as watermelon!  I got a bit over-excited at its size of the first one and picked it too soon. 

I send Christmas greetings to you all.  I do hope you have a happy day wherever you are, especially if your celebrations are effected by Covid. 

We cannot change the direction of the winds but we can adjust the sails.

I'm linking to Betty's My Corner of the World.