Yes, folks, my most un-favourite time of year has rolled around again. (Is un-favourite a word? It is now.) I went with my beloved to Chadstone last Saturday. Ay caramba! That was it for me for shopping centres this year. With every bit of Christmas muzak at the supermarket, every lame decoration around signposts down the street — those shiny ones which form a kind of skirt around the pole are new to me — and every inescapable catalogue and promotional email, ghosts of Christmases past are crowding around. I thank Old Harry I no longer have to run the gauntlet of the Salvation Army brass bands at Melbourne Central Station, honking out carols to the bleary commuters, the shaken money tins providing an ad libitum percussion obligato.  

Family Christmases in years gone by were mostly pretty OK. We all got along well enough to avoid it becoming the kind of ordeal, thick with recriminations and the airing of ancient grievances, as portrayed in Absurd person singular by Alan Ayckbourn. (In one act of this play, Eva decides to end it all one Christmas Eve. She is repeatedly interrupted in carrying out this project — when she removes the bulb from its socket in order to electrocute herself, a guest thinks she is trying to change the bulb and insists on doing it himself . Eva then tries to gas herself, at which another guest imagines the former is trying to clean the oven, and shoves her aside to do it herself. You get the picture.)

Christmas as an adult is another matter. To give might be more blessed than to receive,  or however the saying goes, but the giving involves a fair amount of getting. What I really detest, apart from the relentless commercialisation, is the way everyone becomes so tense and aggressive in shops and markets, as they hunt down all the extra stuff they somehow just to have. Boxing Day seems a lot more relaxed. The main event is finished with for another year, and one can start in on the leftovers and thinking about how to regift the unwanted stuff. Christmases these days, however, are pretty cruisy. We take a Kris Kringle and dips and nibbly stuff to one or another of the ever-obliging sisters-in-law. They do all the hard work, and it is just an excuse for a family catch-up. Everyone gets on, just as they did in my family of origin.

Okay, so Christmas is a big soft target, affording many easy laughs and satiric scenarios. How about this for a plan? (I am recycling a suggestion made ages ago by a family member, so props to them. They know who they are.) It would be rather hard lines for the kids not to get presents. But what if the adults skip the presents for one year, pool what they would have spent, and make a big donation to a bushfire appeal? Among our lot, I am happy to do the donating. (I am thinking of the Christmas Drought Appeal, via the Commonwealth Bank. But I am happy to donate to other good causes, as requested.) Family members can reimburse me as and when convenient.