The Best Family Christmas

A story from past memories

Our family has had all types of Christmas from the drunk parties when my mum and I lived with my father to the traditional roast dinners when we lived with mum’s defacto.  I’ve had a Christmas in hospital where I woke up in traction and next to me there was a stocking the size of my bedside table chock full of lollies, chocolates, chips and toys, but the Christmas that comes back to me most is the one that I’ve always thought to be my most favourite.

The day before, on Christmas Eve, we had said farewell to mum’s best friend, Erszi, Hungarian for Elizabeth.  As a parting gift, just before my father drove off, Erszi had handed me a Christmas cake, which could be clearly seen through its decorative wrapping.

It was early morning as my father loved getting started on road trips early, but being a traditional Aussie Christmas, in the middle of summer, the day was already warming up and our car was already like an oven.

My parents had had enough of Sydney and wanted out, so we had packed all our belongings in the car.  This was the 70s, and seatbelts weren’t mandatory, and I don’t think our car even had seatbelts.  So mum had filled the trunk with our belongings, and what she couldn’t fit in the trunk, about half a dozen massive suitcases, later became a bed for me in the back seat.  4 large suit cases on the back seat, and 2 large suitcases where you put your feet, which meant I had about a 1 foot gap near the roof of the car where I could lie down.

Near the start of the journey, I do remember sitting up, so I think mum had initially piled the suitcases up high next to me, but a few hours later when I was getting tired, that’s when the suitcases were rearranged into a bed for me.

In those days, a bag full of liquorice, and a box full of motion sickness meds were all I needed to survive an indefinitely long road trip. I miss those days, it’s harder for me to stay in a moving car now even with meds.

When I was 10, no longer believing in Santa, but wanting to cause mischief, I remember asking my parents, ‘how is Santa going to find us if we’re on the road?’  Leaving the majority of things behind in our old address, I was happy for any gift I got.  Not taking the bait, I think my mother’s reply was, ‘we’ll see’.

By lunchtime we were well past the mountains and enjoying the views of the cows and sheep in the farms that we drove past.  Between the number plate game, a game of Eye spy and quiet moments when I read the one book within reach 20,000 Leagues beneath the Sea, I was kept entertained for most of the day.  Road trips were a frequent thing for me as we would often drive out to the country on the weekend, but I knew this one was different because when I initially asked “where we going?” at the beginning of the journey, the reply I got was, “where the road takes us” which basically meant anywhere.  Normally, the answer would be the “Goat’s milk farm” to buy a gallon of goat’s milk, or “just to see how far we can get before we have to turn around and be home by Monday”

Mitzi, my cat, was also travelling with us, and in those days, we didn’t know to crate her, we only knew that she had to stay in the car and Mitzi was a quick learner.  She soon saw the car as her home and although she, like us, got out to stretch her legs occasionally and search for the nearest tap to drown herself under, she would always race back to the car whenever she saw us preparing to leave again.

By late evening, we were driving alongside a massive pipeline which I asked my parents about and they explained it probably carries water to the country towns.

I only learned in recent days, through watching a documentary, that the pipeline we were driving alongside back then was one of the first pipelines set up in Australia around the turn of the last century.

We continued to follow the setting sun with the memory making quips of riding off into the setting sun as in the old westerns that I remember watching.  I had long since fallen asleep wishing my parents good night, and sometime through the night, in the pitch blackness, my father had stopped driving and both were sound asleep in the front seat of the car.

It was still dark when I awoke, feeling a bit ill, I had eaten a good chunk of the Christmas cake as dinner the night before, and was regretting this in the morning, but as my parents didn’t stop the car, the cake was all there was to eat.  It would be decades before I touched another Christmas cake after this night.

I asked out loud, not thinking that my parents were still asleep, “Where are we?”  Mum’s half asleep response was “No bloody idea”  Despite lying under and on top of layers of blankets, I was shivering cold in the night air and couldn’t see anything out of the steamed up windows, no street lights, no buildings, nothing.  I went back to sleep and when I woke up again, it was around dawn and I could see we were surrounded by caravans in the middle of nowhere.

A man from a nearby caravan must have seen us through one of his windows as he came out and knocked on the driver’s door till my father woke up.  He asked where we were from, how long we’ve been driving, where we were going and when he was satisfied with the answers my father gave him, he invited us into his caravan for a breakfast of pancakes.

This was my introduction to Horseshoe Caravan park.  Back then it was loads of caravans in what appeared to be the middle of the desert.  To google it nowadays, there are so many Horseshoe caravan parks that I can’t remember which one it was, and every one of them are luxurious with swimming pools and cabins, a far cry from the one we stayed in all those years ago.

Why this one was my favourite is because we were together as a family, no alcohol, no arguments, nothing.  We didn’t have anything but what we brought with us.  It was a peaceful Christmas, how Christmas is meant to be, and we were free.

Author's Note

All comments/critiques welcome :)