Baby Henry will still be spending Christmas with his fur siblings Leo and George. Photo: Keeli Dyson.
For me, Christmas is about spending time with family and eating a silly amount of food together, and it just so happens that those things have coincided on 25 December every year … until now.
Growing up, Christmas traditions were already set.
Christmas Day was spent with my parents, sister and family from my mum’s side, while Boxing Day was reserved for family on my dad’s side.
We hosted at my parents’ house every second year, with an extravagant (and sometimes stressful) set-up for two special days spent with family.
But families can grow and change.
And the more people involved, the more complicated things can become to please everyone, especially if you don’t live in the same town.
For seven years, my now-husband and I spent Christmas apart.
I would stay put in Wollongong, while he would head back to his family in Tamworth.
It wasn’t ideal but it was fine, until we had our son last year and the first grandchild on both sides.
So we made an agreement: for Henry’s first Christmas we would all spend it here in Wollongong and trek it up north the day after Boxing Day, but the next year, this year, it would be the opposite.
Now after more than three decades I will spend my first Christmas Day outside of Wollongong, without my immediate family.
But the more I dwell on missing a single day, as special as it is, the more it has put in perspective how privileged I actually am on every other day.
While it may be disappointing that my parents don’t get to see my son open Christmas presents on the 25th, they have got to see him grow – they watched him learn to crawl, walk and talk and create new memories every single week.
While it may be disappointing that I won’t see my sister or my nephew on the day, I know I can be at their house on mostly any other day of the year in just 15 minutes. In fact, in that same time I could easily reach the houses of my parents, grandfather, grandmother, two sets of aunties and uncles, or four of my cousins.
While it may be disappointing that I won’t get any of my aunty’s creme caramel, I’m much more grateful of the thought that goes into the egg-free pikelets she makes when babysitting my son to cater for his allergy.
While it may be disappointing that we won’t get a photo with my grandfather and his four great-grandchildren with paper hats from bonbons, the kids have spent almost every Saturday morning playing together on his living room floor.
And while it may be disappointing that I’m breaking a lifelong tradition, I’m lucky enough to be able to do everything we would at Christmas just a few days earlier because everyone wants to make sure we can share that moment, so we make it happen.
Mostly I’m fortunate enough to have so many important people in my life that this could even be a problem.
So even though the calendar may mark 25 December as Christmas Day (and the morning Santa will come), I believe there’s some flexibility when it comes to the festive spirit, and as long as you’re with people that you love, the day doesn’t really matter.
And while spending Christmas with the people you love is something very special, I’d rather sacrifice that day to keep the magic of the 364 others any day of the week.
