Fun Reading: What happens on Christmas stays there

CHRISTMAS is such a wonderful time of year.

It’s a time of joy. It’s a time of giving.

It’s a time of letting loose those pent-up frustrations you’ve been holding onto throughout the year and then downing a bottle of cinnamon-flavoured tequila before telling every member of your family exactly what you think of them.

In my family, it’s referred to as the Annual Family Fight. And we all thoroughly look forward to it.

The day starts with my five-yearold asking me who Father Christmas really is.

So, I explain: ‘Well, Johnny. He’s a big, fat white man who sits around for 364 days of the year, forcing tiny people to work for him with no pay and no leave. He then delivers all these slave-made gifts to children around the world, and takes all the credit for everyone else’s hard work.’

‘Donald Trump?’ asks Johnny.

‘No sweetheart, Father Christmas actually works one day a year.’

And so the tone is set for our splendid family gathering that involves a morning of simmering frustrations before the ‘spirit’ of Christmas is unleashed with the popping of champagne and we can get down to business.

It will start off with something innocuous like my mom asking my dad in why he thought a toolbox was an appropriate gift for his wife of four decades.

This is followed by some sheepish retort with my mother ending the fight on ‘well there’s only one tool around here’ before grabbing a bottle of wine and my dad’s credit card and heading off to make some costly online purchases.

There is some calm before we head to the table for a feast of burnt potatoes and something that looks like it could’ve been a turkey if Eskom hadn’t cut the power halfway through cooking the damned thing, before one of the siblings mistakenly calls a spouse by an ex-lover’s name.

Cue a fist fight, throwing of wedding rings and a storming off, so dramatic, it’s almost a shame Zululand doesn’t have a more vibrant theatre scene.

But my best is when we have to suffer through a family Christmas with the in-laws.

Being a seasoned drinker, I tend not to let me emotions get the better of me.

Even when my husband and his siblings are gifted with a cruise to the Seychelles, and I’m given a redand-brown cardigan two sizes too big, which I’m pretty sure I gave my mother-in-law last Christmas.

But my strength of character and feelings of goodwill allow me to rise above it… (although I might have left one of my youngest’s soiled undies in some well-concealed place - I’m not a complete saint).

And so, I sit back, secretly topping up everyone’s drinks while stealthily igniting the truth bombs my inebriated mother-in-law is known to start throwing around by about 1pm.

‘You only ever call when you need something!’ / ‘Your child has absolutely no manners!’ / ‘Jeffrey has always been my favourite son!’ / ‘I’ve been having an affair with Gertrude from next door for years!’

But, fortunately, what happens at Christmas, stays at Christmas.

And so we begin the New Year afresh. Bruises healing. Wedding rings recovered. Drowning in debt. Excited and ready to lay the road with new grievances that can be aired some 12 months down the line. This truly is the spirit of Christmas.