Back to Black
Christmas-card quaintness is all the greater in – hope springs eternal – sunny climes.
All our family possessions that I last saw in Washington DC at the end of July are about to be delivered to us in Wellington. Well, not quite “all”, because we received a message from the shipping company advising that on arrival of our effects in New Zealand, quarantine officers had removed three Christmas decorations that contained plant material, and we had to decide their fate. (The fate of the decorations, that is, not the officers.)
The options, in no particular order, were to send them back to the US at our cost, “heat treatment – very hot, very expensive – completed in Auckland and no guarantee they will come out the way they went in”, or destruction – $25 plus GST. One of the items was described as “a Santa with pine cones/plant material”, and there were two other offending decorations, though for the life of me I cannot picture them. The Santa I do recall – a particularly unattractive and hirsute bloke in a grey-green coat and black vinyl boots who stood about 30cm high. If he were life size, real and came to the door, you’d shout, “Go away, I’m calling the police”, in your most assertive voice. He carried a sack of sticks as though maybe he’d gone down someone’s chimney and, instead of leaving gifts, had nicked their firewood. He was made in China, for sure, given to me in New Zealand about 20 years ago, and taken to the US when we moved there in 2016. But this year, like a modern migrant, he was denied re-entry when attempting to return. More correctly, it sounds like he cannot return without being melted down, which I guess is a fundamental difference between quarantine and immigration rules. Anyway, we had the three items destroyed and I suspect that as we unpack our container, we’ll wish quarantine had done for a lot more.
For my husband, youngest daughter and me, this is our first summer Christmas in four years. Not that this year summer in Wellington has so far been an actual thing, but hope is one of the more endearing human characteristics.
One of the best parts of Northern Hemisphere Christmases was buying Christmas cards with snowy pictures and glitter without suffering the sense of geographical misappropriation I have when I buy the same kinds of cards in New
Zealand. Hegemony over Christmas iconography belongs to the Northern Hemisphere and it is difficult to find cards that have New Zealand Christmas themes that people who have never been here would understand. For example, a pohutukawa says “Christmas” to me, but would say “red tree” to someone in Britain. Mind you, a card with a polar bear on it might once have seemed Christmassy but now might be assumed to be an ad for global warming.
Many New Zealand-themed Christmas cards look like also-rans for the bird of the year competition. I chose some with native birds to send to my US friends – scribbling a note inside that said, “You may as well see these now because they’ll probably be extinct before you visit”. Admittedly, my message lacked the cheer factor but it was, to me, still better than sending one of those Father-Christmas-on-a-surfboard options. Maybe I’m overthinking this.
The act of sending Christmas cards at all seems increasingly quaint, and perhaps within a few years will have died out altogether. That would be a shame. With social media and free phone apps, we are all more easily in contact, but nothing says “I care” quite like the botheration of choosing your card, writing in it, finding your friend’s address, buying the stamps, putting them on the envelope and posting it. That’s commitment.
Eat your fake heart out, Instagram.
“So my therapist says ‘every day is a gift’ and I’m like, ‘that’s the problem!’”
My message was better than sending one of those FatherChristmas-ona-surfboard options.