"Humans need fantasy to be human, to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape." Terry Pratchett
The quote above actually doesn't really have anything to do with my idea of what this post was going to be but I liked it and Christmas is indeed a fantasy - certainly the Christmas that we all know and - love? The quote has actually been more appropriate than I first thought.
I won't go into the fantasy of the religious meaning of Christmas because that entirely depends on your religious outlook. No, it's the fantasy of the perfect family and friend reunion, that I'm looking at here. Love and good cheer and all that. Not to mention the good food.
And now that I look at that quote maybe the falling angel and the rising ape are indeed appropriate. The angel being the woman - it's always a woman who does the whole thing - shopping, planning, buying and writing Christmas cards, buying presents, wrapping them, providing and decorating the Christmas tree, organising people to come, decorating the house, the table and everything, cooking the food ... The woman below - well obviously this is a posed photograph - looks cool and organised - even happy - but it does sort of represent the problem in terms of all the stuff that is required to at least consider.
The ape is the person that woman becomes before the meal is eaten, everyone has gone home, and everything has been tidied up. Mostly because I see the ape as being somewhat mad, even angry. Certainly stressed. Which is probably being most unfair to apes.
It's not just the Christmas meal thing and the Christmas presents though is it? I hadn't thought about it before, but one Australian writer noted that the whole thing is worse here, because it's also the end of the school year - which, if you have children means end of year prize-givings, carols and various other events. If you are working - it's also the end of year and so there are office parties as well. For us, it's book group end of year planning and Christmas parties, street parties and people saying "must catch up before Christmas", although as another writer said - what's wrong with January - when you can relax and chill? As long as it's not too hot and you are worrying about bush fires - as we shall be tomorrow. Oh - and David and I added to the pressure by getting married on December 22. How stupid was that? Although it is indeed nice to go out for good meal just before the Christmas panic. Other than remembering to book somewhere that is.
It's actually been interesting looking at the viewing stats for my blog of late - generally lower than usual - and maybe I have been writing below par, but I suspect, well I'm telling myself this, that it might just be that people are too busy doing other things. I also note when I do my 'years gone by' thing, that there are a lot of gaps in December - sometimes weeks at a time - and I certainly wasn't away on holiday. I think it just indicates busy, busy, busy.
This year, as in the past few years, our traditional Christmas Eve dinner will be missing one half of the family, as they are now in Boston USA in -2 degree temperatures. Their summer adventure this year is the Eastern side of the USA, so we shall miss them. But the rest of us - my older son, his two sons and their mother, plus the parents of my younger son's wife, will gather together - a little mournfully, and hopefully outside on a sunny day. There will be traditional Australian prawns - provided by my daughter-in- law's mother, and maybe some gravlax too - I haven't quite decided on that as yet - roast turkey with all its traditional bits and pieces, a ham as well, and some kind of light but rich dessert. Yet to be decided. And there may be three extra guests in the form of my not quite daughter-in-law's brother and family.
My main pressure point on all that is getting an appropriate sized turkey at an appropriate point in time. This year there is the additional pressure of it needing to be either a frozen turkey bought at the point where it needs to be thawed - earlier than you might think as this diagram shows, or a fresh turkey bought just a day or so before.
This year I cannot buy a frozen turkey well in advance because I have no freezer space. We have two available freezers - one in my kitchen and one in the kitchen in our 'guest house' at the top of the drive. However, mine is full to bursting and the one in the 'guest house' is full of the frozen foods my daughter-in-law left behind when they went to America. So fridge storage is really the only option this year. But I live in hope. One year I thought I would be super-efficient and ordered two fresh turkeys to pick up the day before Christmas Eve, only to find when I turned up - at the right time - to collect, that one had been given to somebody else. Panic, which was fortunately saved by the other supermarket having some fresh turkeys still in stock. But it's a worry.
There will be no time spent on a fancy table setting - not even a relatively simple one like this - maybe some crackers and some Christmassy napkins, but I don't think there will be much more. And I don't think it will matter.
In years gone by a lot of effort has been put into Christmas trees, and Christmas presents. Can I be bothered this year with the tree? I don't know. Not that it is a tree - it's a simple silver wood structure - a tall triangular shape around which the Christmas tinsel is draped, but there will be no presents to put under the tree - Christmas Day will be at my son's apartment not here, and besides we are all now too old and too difficult to buy for. I have proposed a simplified almost Kris Kringle kind of thing for our much diminished family this year, but have not yet had any response - so I could be doing a desperate dash around the local shopping mall - should I be able to find a parking spot that is.
So far I remain calm and marginally optimistic that it will all sort itself out. My lovely husband will certainly do his bit by polishing the ceiling and washing the bricks outside. Not to mention the cobwebs and the grass. And I'm sure it will all sort itself out somehow, even if we end up eating chicken. It's the stuffing that everyone wants anyway - not the turkey really.
Terry Pratchett himself said:
"I'd rather be a rising ape than a falling angel."
I think he drew this himself - the signature looks like his - and the ape seems to be ready to rescue the falling angel. So is my husband the rising ape?
It's a quote worth thinking on anyway.
YEARS GONE BY
December 15
2023 - Feasting with The Guardian
2022 - Bubble and squeak
2021 - Iceberg lettuce
2020 - A lucky dip - SBS focussed
2019 - Affogato
2018 - Maltesers
2016 - The first of the summer jam - the climate is changing. The plums have all been gone for a couple of weeks now this year. They were rescued and turned into jam some time ago.
And look - having said that there were lots of gaps in Decembers gone by in my blog - today we have a full house. Maybe I pull myself together at this point in the Christmas frenzy.
No Christmas fairy here. There may be a breakfast picnic in a park. As you say it will probably all work out. Good luck with the turkey!
And I thought you were a rising star!