All I want for Christmas

25 Dec

I've been thinking about Christmas a lot lately, and as it approaches, I've decided that I want to do something special. I've devised a simple project: I plan to meet someone new every day and ask them some questions about Christmas. This will help me gain new perspectives on cultural holidays.

Over the 24 days leading up to Christmas I took to the Streets of Sydney to interview one person a day about their though and Christmas experiences have been. There were two rules, one it had to be some one I had never met before and two I had to alternate between genders every day.

What about me? Well, Christmas has always been waking up early to open all the gifts in the morning before heading out for lunch and dinner at my Grandparent’s homes. Lunch was always with my mum’s parents, and dinner was always with my dad’s parents. Lunch was buffet style, first at the flat in Cronulla until my Grandmother passed; then, and till now, it has been lunch at Sizzler (they have a special Christmas buffet). But slowly, it would get smaller, first my Grandfather, father and finally Great Aunt to leave mum, sis, my nephew and myself.

It would then be off to Oatly for afternoon tea and dinner with my dad's family. Generally, there would be some Cousins, Uncles, and Aunties floating around. There was never a time when everyone was there, at least as far as I can recall. This, too, would change, but not terribly slowly, until Gran's health started to slide. Now that she has passed, I don't know if there will be another big Christmas gathering.

I don't mean this as doom-and-gloom, but how families shrink and grow over time has changed over the past 20 years—though most of it was in the past 5 years. But I don't think this really changed how I thought about Christmas.