Christmas #3 (The Day Of Boxing)

Sadly Sash had to work on Boxing Day, so it was me in the back of mum & dad's car all the way to Castlemaine. Castlemaine is about 2 hours northish of Melbourne, in goldfields country. Equally sadly, I inquired as to whether dad thought the cricket (Boxing Day Test) would be rained out. Just being friendly, really. Not an invitation to tune into the cricket for the entire 2 hour drive!!! Mum was not impressed!!

The weather was not really warm, but the rain had cleared up and it was bearable to be outside. My auntie and uncle who live in Castlemaine live on a beautiful property in a heritage listed house. They are a school principle and a doctor respectively, with beautiful taste. Their house is gorgeous.

I should probably explain the Boxing Day thing. I think I've mentioned how humungous my family is: mum has eight brothers and sisters and all but one are married with kids. Which means a lot of inlaws. So, on Christmas day, most people go to their inlaws for lunch/dinner/whatever and the big family gets together on Boxing Day instead. Mum hosts lunch on Christmas day for her parents and those who don't have inlaws available. In the past, we would do Christmas with dad's family in Hamilton the weekend before Christmas. This year, Grandma and Wilma came to Christmas day instead.

So anyway, Boxing Day is normally a huge affair, with about 40 people. It used to be lots of little kids, but we have almost all grown up. I am the oldest of the grandkids, and the youngest were camping in Tasmania. So again today, Jack & Sam, the twins, were the youngest.

I still can't get used to my cousins being grown up. I used to babysit them, change their nappies, teach them piano, and now they're adults. When I started teaching Alex piano she was in prep. I remember this stubborn little five year old, she had the talent but was a bit reluctant to practice. Now she is a stunning 15 year old blonde thing, taller than me, still a bit stubborn I suspect. Her brother Scott was a different story. Two years older, he was very serious about it and practiced a lot. He was great and has gone on to learn guitar. He played his first gig at the Perseverance a few weeks ago (I couldn't go as I had rehearsal but I can't wait for the next one). Luke is the same age as Scott, also a talented musician and sportsman, and about 8 feet tall now. They have both just finished high school, and did really well. They both gave me shit for raising the bar so high that no-one has ever been able to beat it. I didn't mean to get 99 really! But they will never let me forget it!!! Megan is about six months older than the boys, and has always been a bit of a rebel. She belongs to the Castlemaine family and went to boarding school. She has gone through the "emo" phase and I think come out the other side, although she still has black hair and piercings.

The "girls", Elizabeth and Steph, are gorgeous. (Most of my cousins come in pairs) Both turning 21 this year, they are very different - Liz very easygoing, but quite vague and a bit ditsy, Steph very down to earth, practical and confident. Both lovely and very cute. They were very close growing up, and remain so despite Steph's family having moved to Sydney about 10 years ago.

Then there's a whole stack of boys: Matt, Josh, James & Xavier. Matt is the closest cousin to my age, but we don't have much in common. He did come to my gig when we played in Sydney a few weeks ago though. Josh & James are hilarious, they are complete bogan boys who have their own language and I'm sure completely ruled their school. Our uncle Ray calls them Beavis and Butthead. But they are actually gorgeous, hearts of gold and wicked senses of humour. James is a very talented drummer and they are both great at sports. Sport and music kind of run in the family.

Xavier is a little bit younger than Josh n James, and grew up in a very different environment. He's much more worldly, having travelled overseas from a young age with his parents, and gone on exchange to Japan in school. He has since spent quite a bit of time overseas, and actually met up with Sash in Indonesia a few years ago for New Years Eve.

So that's most of the kids, the other Sydney family couldn't make it down so their two are missing, and there were the others in Tasmania, so it's not quite the complete picture. But they're the ones I grew up with, the others are much younger.

The actual grown ups, the mums and dads, would take much longer to describe, but suffice to say they are a very tight group. Mum & Dad don't have many other friends, their best friends are their brothers & sisters. Weird, I know. All the sisters spend heaps of time together, including lunch every Saturday. The brothers-in-law (for most of mum's siblings are girls) share a love of golf, sport in general, golf, drinking beer, and golf. And teasing poor defenseless young nieces. Which is why I think when I got to uni I got along better with guys than girls. They made sense. They were just like my uncles - they operated by teasing each other and whoever else they could pick on.

Lunch was fabulous, way too much food as usual. Pauline had forgotten to bring her tomato salad and was rather dark about it, so the uncles of course mentioned it at every opportunity. "Gee, it would be nice if there were some tomato with this meal..." etc.

After lunch it was time for presents. As the family is so big, we long ago gave up the concept of everyone buying gifts for everyone. It just got ridiculous. So we now do a kris kringle style thing where everyone gets one gift. And the best part is, I'm a kid, which means I don't have to buy anything for anyone. Years ago I said I was happy to buy for someone, but the adults wouldn't have a bar of it. So I just sit back and open my present.

I got a cute pair of summer pj's. Good timing, I had almost bought a pair the other day.

After lunch an even better surprise: Sash arrived!! She had worked till about 3pm and it was fairly quiet so her boss told her to go. She drove up in her work uniform without telling anyone she was coming.

We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking wine and digesting the huge meal. At some stage afternoon turned into evening and people drifted off home. I was staying the night in Castlemaine with mum and dad at some dodgy motel. I took Sash to pick up the key and we checked out the room. The single bed was less than a foot from the double bed. No way I was sleeping in such proximity to my parents!!

Over dinner (yes, somehow we managed to shovel more food down) the conversation became quite serious. There was talk of drugs, depression, all the things that families, or our family anyway, normally steer away from. Alex ended up in tears, I think it was all a bit much for her 15 year old mind. But it was good for us to have those discussions, and good for her to be involved I think. I really did have a sheltered upbringing, it is good that the family is finally discussing important things.

We had considered meeting Megan at the pub, but hanging out with 18 year olds at the local country pub just didn't appeal in the end and Sash and I went to sleep on mattresses on the floor of the spare room.

I was woken up to Sasha's alarm waking her up in time to drive back for work. "I have to snooze or I can't get up" she said grumpily and went back to sleep.

Ten minutes later it went off again.

"FUCK!" Sash said angrily.
"What?" I said, thinking she'd overslept or forgotten something, or some other similar crisis.
"I don't want to go to work!"
Good morning person.

So she got ready and went off to work. I was awake now, so I ventured out to the loo and found Yvette already up. Yvette's the youngest of my mum's siblings and only 10 years older than me. We've always been quite close. We found Terry (the doctor) outside reading the paper over coffee. He had to go to work today. We sat with him and I munched on a piece of toast to tide me over till the rest of us went out for brunch.

Brunch was really nice, Castlemaine is a lovely town and I had a huge pancake. Yum!! Yes, Christmas is all about the food!! We said goodbye to our relatives and drove back to Melbourne. Mum and dad dropped me off at home - I had a few hours to pack etc before flying to Brisbane to stay with Adam for 10 glorious days!!!