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and dated January 1st., 2004.
WELCOME TO MY DAY..
IT IS NICE TO HAVE YOU SHARE IT WITH ME...
Well folks..this weekly diary has tended to be almost an annual affair of late..and I apologise..I have had computer problems, resulting in upgraded-almost - everythings , plus the breaking in of WinXP, which refused to run so many of my programmes, but with most things back under my control, I promise to try to do better in future, and Xmas seemed to be the time to begin..
Not that it is much of a secret, these days, that I am no longer any kind of Christian, though I figure if those shepherds had to watch their flocks by night and sit on the ground, Christ would have been better born in Australia anyway, if his birthday had to be December 25th.
(Though the accommodation problem for that week would have been just as acute here, as it was in Bethlehem!)
But in multicultural Australia we seem to have become increasingly comfortable with Xmas, rather than CHRISTmas, enjoying a hedonistic festival that most people can celebrate for one reason or another. It's similar, I suppose, to American Thanksgiving, with people travelling long distances to a family meal with traditional foods.
And, hopefully, it is that family spirit we go home for, rather than the orgy of gift-giving which has become virtually compulsory.
This year, with Xmas midweek, and having to work either side of it, I tried very hard to pass the Xmas dinner tradition on to other family members..mostly to the daughter, who, at 40, with 6 children from 17 to 2, should have been hosting it long ago. WE have tried three times before to pass it on to either the daughter or the elder son's wife , but no times were really successful.
So that left me a much more relaxed run in to the two public holidays, all we could take off work, and the few things left me to do could be achieved in a less frenzied progress, since there are still traditional family things it seems only I can get right..favourite foods the kids refuse to do without, and which noone has been able to duplicate..our homemade Baileys Irish Cream, for example, and a sugary fudge that melts in the mouth, and an American savoury called "scramble" which involves slowbaking of various nuts and breakfst cereals and spices. And the Christmas cakes, of course, which, as yet unsampled, smell superb!
Anyway, this did seem to me to be the right time to have the younger generation take over, and having HANDED it over, I was determined to be a good guest, and not feel I need to do anything much at all, even should I get another impassioned early morning Xmas call, as last year when Fiona had to phone me to tell me that the big easycarve turkey roll I had bought for Xmas dinner and which offer to cook for her had been rejected, had already been eaten--by the dog!!
At work, despite our promise not to decorate before December 1st, and never to play carols before December 18th., Xmas begins for me in June, when the Xmas catalogue stock has to be selected, and I suppose I plan all year round, really-rather like Myers or Maceys with their Windows, since display space and equipment has to be thought out and arranged, and a theme selected and supported.
In a mall, the general atmosphere become infectious; cards arrive, customers and sales reps bear gifts while the buskers and the decorations and the breakup parties combine to set an end-of-year, end-of-cycle mood, and our staff Xmas party gets bigger every year as more and more staff are employed.
WE had a Kris Kringle, of course, drawing for a secret gift recipient, secrets never wll kept-but I received the rudest gift of all. Claiming to despair of having me drink my coffee while it is hot, the staffer had bought me a new coffee mug, on which two well-developed young men featured, and whose clothes disappeared once hot coffee was added, only to reappear should the coffee be allowed to cool down.
As for me, I was trying out a new digital camera, the old one, purchased in San Francisco during that first USA trip in 1998, and used since for all the shop advertising as well as for this webpage, had been proving increasingly troublesome and in need of a thorough overhaul, or maybe even retirement, and I had used eBay to obtain a replacement, temporary or otherwise, and was usingt this new Nikon Coolpix 3100 , seemingly so small and insubstantial, with so many strange new controls , for the first time. I didn't do all that well, really, making the mistake of selecting far too basic a pixel configuration, but the "indoor party, nighttime" setting was impressive, and the pictures, though not sharply focused, were good enough to make a great slideshow at work next day.
As well as our Kris Kringle gifts, the staff always give us a "thankyou for the party and for the year" gift as well, usually a most acceptable Xmas-food hamper, and, with staff numers steadily increasing, this hamper has grown over the years.
At home, the little we see of it, the pool water has cleared and is warmer than for the past few years, perfect for swimming now, though, as the grandchildren get more involved in their own activites, we see less of them splashing there.
Baby Trinity , new to the family last January 3rd, is proving a most outgoing young lady, quite different to big sister, Astra, who starts school in the new year.
Cassie and Em are doing well at school, and getting to know a new potential stepmother, while everyone dotes on Claudia, daughter Fiona's youngest.
As for travel plans, well, we have so many staff, these days, each taking arranged leave throughout the year, that once I recovered from the two lots of surgery and was given permission to travel, there seemed never a time that I was not working someone's shifts for them or having some vital fuction to organize and oversee. And after the departure of Natalie, who had held the fort so well for me during my enforced absence, we haven't had anyone who could be left in charge to do the pays and rosters.
Love to everyone ,and everyone on our side!
GREAT BRITAIN
U.S.A.
BUNDALONG, VICTORIA
U.S.A.
ATLANTA, GA.
BILOXI, MS.
HATTIESBURG, MS
U.S.A.
NEW ORLEANS, LA.
OLYMPIC GAMES, SYDNEY 2000
BACK TO THE OPENING PAGE:
Please mail all your questions,answers and comment about this home page to:
robin_knight@bigfoot.com
©Robin Knight, 2003.
Perhaps the timing was wrong, then, and this year will be right. 
No chance of the younger brother's wife taking her turn to arrange the occasion , either. While an excellent organizer, who always puts on a children's party while they are visiting here , she is a Muslim, raising Muslim children, and they live in Abu Dhabi, which trip she does not want to make, at presentr, despite the son's original plans to come home, because she is expecting our eleventh grandchild.
Funny situation there. Ruswana is from Lahore Islam stock, but raised in Britain, where the family appears to observe both Ramadan and Christmas.
And from the latest pictures of grandson Harun, wanting to open presents NOW, and and granddaughter Sahar trying to look like Santa, it appears these mixed traditions are being maintained in Abu Dhabi.
Hmm..will that make the children more tolerant, or more confused?
Anyway, for 2003, we didn't have a lot of success handing over the reins (or passing the buck?) until I decided that with the house getting smaller and smaller and the family larger and larger, we would all eat in the carport, the only large flat space on our hillside block, at which point Daughter, with a new boyfriend to impress, and a new home to show off, huge and old but renovated, decided that the only thing, really, stopping her taking over as hostess was cashflow. Which Husband was happy to remedy if it meant I could concentrate more on work, (and on him, indirectly), without the extra stress that put me in hospital two years ago.
In fact he was going to hand her exactly twice what she and I worked out would pay for evrything and leave some over for indulgences!
It didn't..she still ran out, but Xmas is like that!
And we still put up a tree. This year it was up on a table since youngest granddaughter, Trinity, began walking on December 18th, but it looked good on a Xmas-cloth topped table, surrounded by presents all wrapped in red and gold foil.
In fact, you will find my New Year gift to you under the tree, too. Just click and open!
And it is quite hard, so far ahead, and in a different season, to visualise how the economic sitution will be six months on, and every year I have horrid, sleepness-nights- type worries that I have overbought.
This year, definitely not so. With the new mall firmly established as a great shopping experience, and an active Chamber of Commerce to promote it, and so many new houses on the old farming estates now completed and occupied by families with regular salaries, there is more disposable income being introduced into the district and more young children to spend it on.
And , as part of our pharmacy complex, we have the only toyshop for at least an hour's drive in three directions, with windows opposite the supermarket checkouts- windows whose glass is always marked by little fingers and noses being pressed against it to gaze at out singing dancing unicorns and the fairies and the books and the dressed teddies.
This year's breakup , on December 17th., as usual at the in-mall pub's bistro,was our nicest ever, I think. Jenny, now 21 and fresh back from overseas travel, is an old hand at organizing the night these days, and even excelled her previous efforts, and the hotel served and fed us so well, and charged us so little, that Doug now wants to make the get-together dinner a twice a year affair, with a midwinter Xmas as well.
This was a funny idea, anyway, but what added to the general amusement was the rather priapic state of the striplings under hot-coffee stimulation. The giftgiver, anxious to demonstrate how the mug worked, hurried to beg hot water from the kitchen, and then wished, fervently, that she had tried out the product first, before a whole room of interested onlookers became involved in the public disrobing!
Especially the closeup of that coffee mug filled with hot water!
This year, there was an envelope attatched ,with two tickets to next September's opening of "A Midsummer NIght's Dream" from the Bell Shakespeare Company, whose productions we love and see as often as we can.
This company with its modern-slant approach to the Bard's works, often uses Geelong as a "tryout" city, and we last saw "Comedy Of Errors" that way, and loved it!.
Maddie and Steph both have afterschool and weekend jobs at the big KFC in the city centre, and will work there through their holidays.
Maddie will be 17 on January 7th and starting her last year of school. so I guess next year's Christmas gifts, for her, will have to include car-accessories.....
While back in Abu Dhabi, 5 year old Sahar is already at school, and actually manages to talk to us on the telephone these days after 5 years of being too shy..
Surprisingly, to me, anyway, who grew up in a disfunctional family, all the cousins get on very, very well!! 
But I have fingers crossed that this has changed, with the return of Natalie from her year in Japan, and her engagement to a young man with a promising career in Geelong, and their wish to settle down locally..
A graduate who worked for us all through school and university, and for a year after, Natalie will look for other jobs more suited to her studies, but we have her in the meantime and I may be free to take some time off..maybe even accept a few of the invitations that have been so kindly offered
Oh, and compliments of whichever season you are celebrating!
-from
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