Bill Ralston ponders Christmas

’Tis the season to wish it was next year already.

Derek Flynn/NZ Herald

Every month there seems to be a new hurdle to overcome. We get over the Rugby World Cup and there’s an election to be dealt to. No sooner have we voted than Christmas is coming down the tracks towards us like a runaway locomotive. Of all these challenges I think the Festive Season is the one to be most feared.

Christmas certainly requires huge preparation and I’ve already begun.

We live in Auckland’s Franklin Rd, which, for some reason, long ago took up the habit of bedecking virtually every house with fairy lights. I’ve already had to hire a student to drape our frontage with sheets of coloured lights. I know I should do it myself but ladders and I are a bad mix. A Christmas spent in the casualty ward is not my preferred option.

The festival of lights, of course, means I’m condemned to a month-long incarceration at the back of the house because of the thousands of people wandering the footpath out front, gawping at the street’s display. Occasionally of an evening I’ll forget the crowd outside and almost have a seizure when I open the front door. There’s a cacophony of carollers and buskers, honking horns from the cavalcade of slow-moving cars, the excited babble of young voices and a blinding strobe effect from camera flashes.

I spend most of December wondering why on Earth we do this every year, but I have to admit there is something remarkable about a single Auckland street voluntarily putting on an annual free event for the entire city to enjoy.

Christmas is an expensive time, so it is good there is something families can do at no cost. The street long ago decided to have no commercialisation of the event, no sponsorship and no one hawking their wares. The pavement performers do it for free, although I’d cheerfully pay the morris dancers to do their prancing as far away from my place as possible.

My least favourite pre-Christmas chore is the ritual cleaning of the barbecue. Despite my best intentions I invariably fail to clean it at the end of the season, so each year I’m faced with a pool of last summer’s congealed fat and a fossilised sausage stuck under the grill. Am I the only person forced to use Dettol on a Weber? It does add a certain hospital tang to the first few meals cooked on it every year.

Then there is the hazard of Christmas parties. As I work from home there is no risk of my having to endure an office party – it would simply consist of me  and my wife having a drink, which we do most evenings, anyway. I did consider banning myself from other people’s office parties, but that might be construed as rude. Instead, I’m going to adopt a strategy used very successfully by an old friend. He arrives at the client function early, happily greets everyone, then after 10 minutes or so says loudly that he’s going to the loo and promptly disappears home.

The theory is the clients will remember him because he arrived early and they were sober. Later in the night and several drinks down the hatch, they’ll have no idea whether he’s there or not. The next day he drops his corporate hosts a note saying how much he enjoyed the party and what a wonderful night he had. The one flaw in that, however, is he takes the slight risk the entire venue might have burnt down after he left and the client may be offended at his enjoyment of the conflagration.

I’ve come to the conclusion the only good thing about Christmas is Boxing Day, when it’s finally finished and there are some good leftovers in the fridge.
The thought of Christmas shopping gives most people the shudders and I loathe whole exercise. I’ve reduced the pain by simply giving the children cash, which avoids my trying to figure out what gadget they might want this year and buying the wrong one.

Wives are a different matter. You can’t just drop a wad of notes in their hand and tell them to buy whatever they like. That is not perceived as a loving gesture. So I turn into a shopping stalker, following hard on the heels of my dearly beloved in the stores, watching her every move and making mental notes if she shows interest in any item that might make a gift. This technique has proved effective but can attract the attention of store detectives who wrongly assume you’re some kind of sexual predator tailing an unwary woman.

I wish you all good luck over the next four weeks. It’s the final but gruelling challenge we have to face this year. Let’s get it over with.