Category Archives: Christmas past

Back to the present and recent adventures

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… and the changes wrought by aging

Christmases since 2010

Conveniently in 2014 I summed up 2010 to 2014 in one post: Christmas 2014 and earlier. Some extracts:

2014: This year’s Christmas as posted to Facebook yesterday: “Great sharing of memories back as far as the 1940s with my cousin and her husband at Mangerton today. Good food too — and shiraz. Thanks Helen and Jim Langridge.” Particularly poignant memories of Christmas 1951 at Chamberlain Avenue in Caringbah – my sister’s last one. Helen recalled it vividly – and yes I did apparently convince her that we could see Santa in the sky….

2013: …  the Steelers Club offered us a wonderful if unusual Christmas menu. The flounder was to die for!

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2012: My main Christmas celebration was the day before. M came down in the afternoon. After a chat at Diggers with a friendly old lady we went for a beer or two and a sit at Illawarra Brewery, then to Steelers for a hot pot Chinese dinner at the Long Yuan. The food passed the M test!

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M supplied this potential replacement for the dear departed Baby Toshiba.

2011: By mid-January Sirdan will be a resident of Gympie (Queensland), so yesterday was the last of Rosebery…

It was actually quite a long day, as I left Wollongong on the early train.

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Spent a couple of hours with M in Surry Hills, then over to Sirdan’s in time for lunch. Back home around 7pm.

2010: Spent the day with Sirdan in Rosebery. Missy (four months old) is the latest resident there.

And 2024?

On Wednesday I went to City Diggers, as the previous Thursday, when I was last in the Club, I met Ian T, a TIGS ex-student I had taught 50 years ago! He is a lawyer with the Illawarra Legal Centre, an amazing non-profit service. On FB afterwards we arranged to have lunch the following Wednesday, and so to the Club I went.

But come 1.00 pm and no Ian! Through FB Messenger he let me know he could not leave work as there was something of a pre-Christmas rush on at the Legal Centre. So I enjoyed my chicken and vegetable pie nonetheless, and no doubt Ian and I will catch up in due course. So good the work he and his colleagues are doing for this community!

Before leaving home on Wednesday morning I had read my cousin Helen’s 2024 Christmas letter. Helen is two years younger than me, but she has had a rather horrendous 2024 — a shoulder replacement and complications. So before lunch, while waiting for Ian, I rang her. So glad I did.

She enters her 80s next year, I think…. We are indeed aging.

And something else from Wednesday — a FB Message from M, aka Michael Xu, that inveterate traveller some of whose recent adventures I have given a taste of here. See for example where I posted the great Cavafy poem “Ithaka”: A poem for Sunday.

On FB on 17th November he wrote: “Leaving Turkey to Greece now, I like Turkey a lot, didn’t expect anything and didn’t know much of the country, turned out is pretty good, friendly people and good infrastructure, mix old and new, full of ruins and history, met some great people from around world…”

He is on the journey of a lifetime, beginning with London in June, then walking the Camino in Spain, on to Portugal, Morocco in September, Egypt and Jordan in October, then Turkey….

He is back home now, and he invited me to come to his place for Christmas. I was deeply touched by that, really touched. I would love to see the renovations he had done/did to his apartment, and of course to hear more about those journeys, and possibly also to meet (again in some cases) some of his many friends.

1997 — photo by William Yang

But the fact is I have almost stopped going to Sydney, especially on weekends or public holidays when the transport is rather sparse. You will recall I did not go to my own 65th School Reunion, or to my Aunt Kay’s funeral. My expeditions these days are fewer and local. That is the way it is.
But to be asked means a lot.

It may be too that current industrial unrest between the NSW government and the Railways Union could mean there are no trains at Christmas! That possibility is there as I write this on Thursday.

To the Club again 23rd December

That follows from the fact I have a medical appointment that morning, but yesterday I had a phone call from Colin Macdonald to say he was back in town from Cowra, so likely we will get together afterwards at Diggers.

Christmas itself I will spend quietly at home, as I did last year. I really don’t mind.

How we see/feel time as we age

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Myself when young and now at 81

In 1957 Mr Harrison read The Snow Goose to our 3B class

The following year I was on the school magazine committee with Harrison in charge. He wove the material for his own suits, I recall! And I also recall how good his reading had been, and the emotion still invested in the Dunkirk evacuation story.

To Harrison the memory of wartime was clearly still fresh. The evacuation of Dunkirk was in May 1940. Just 17 years later Harrison read us The Snow Goose.

To most of us at 14 or 15 in that class it seemed like ancient times already. Though many of us were indeed still haunted by those times just before and early in our own lifetimes. I think especially of Alfie van der Poorten (RIP) on that magazine committee with me….

Van der Poorten was born into a Jewish family in Amsterdam in 1942, after the German occupation began. His parents, David and Marianne van der Poorten, gave him into foster care with the Teerink family in Amersfoort, under the name “Fritsje”; the senior van der Poortens went into hiding, were caught by the Nazis, survived the concentration camps, and were reunited with van der Poorten and his two sisters after the war. The family moved to Sydney in 1951, travelling there aboard the SS Himalaya.

Seventeen years ago! And in 2024 that takes me to 2007

I was in Surry Hills and blogging like mad

And far from being ancient history, to this 81-year-old it is like yesterday….

So what was that about?

Later

The Porterhouse being a bit too crowded and noisy we went instead to the Chinese Whisper in Crown Street.

Sirdan confirmed his news. He will be accompanying The Empress to London and Hong Kong later this year. He no longer has to worry about work. That’s all I can say about it… Given The Empress is having some health issues it is a good thing Sirdan can go with him though.

Next day

Sirdan’s changed fortune dates from this weekend, though he did not know it at the time…

2010: Michael Xu and Sirdan at Chinese Whisper in Crown Street Surry Hills

And in 2007 that inveterate traveller M was somewhere between Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica….

Browse the December 2007 archive

Addendum: clarifying “Sirdan confirmed his news.”

2007 was an emotional year in our circle.

Malcolm, me, Sirdan 29 April 2007 in Sacred Heart Hospice Darlinghurst.

Thursday 31 May

I have just come from the hospice. His ship is about to leave, it seems… He was conscious of my visit, and I am told his half-brother came to see him Tuesday. He couldn’t talk though as he is only just breathing. The hospice will ring when the time comes.

Mind you, he looked worse on Sunday, but then, as I said to Sirdan, on Sunday he looked worse than my mother did after she had died.

Later

Sirdan, The Empress and I met at The Shift this evening to talk about arrangements. Sirdan had spent several hours with Lord M this afternoon, together with another friend from Lord M’s flying and music lives….

As you now know, I was right to think that would be the last time I was to see Malcolm…

A Memorial Service for the Late Malcolm Gordon Gleeson will be held in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart Hospice, Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst Friday, 29th June 2007, commencing at 11:00am. It is a red ribbon occasion.

Friends: where would we be without them? My particular appreciation to John Morrison (and the family), Ian Smith, Danny Nel and Neil Whitfield for their friendship, love and support particularly over the past few months. My love and best wishes though as always to ALL my friends.
My life has been shortened by this bastard disease but do not shed a tear at my passing… Be happy for me that I packed so much living into a short space of time.
— Malcolm, April 2007.

During that period Sirdan used sometimes to buy Lotto tickets at the Oxford Street newsagents. He was not registered, and when he got home would put the tickets in a drawer, not always checking. Then one day later in 2007 he decided to cash them in.

You could say all hell broke loose! One was a winning ticket. A cool three million. That’s why lunch was on Sirdan that day, and why he no longer had to worry about work….

And I have to say much assistance with my move to The Gong in late 2010 was from that win also….

Sirdan now lives in New Zealand.

See On SBS last night a brilliant program took me back to 2007 and dear friends and Final Lord Malcolm reports: Malcolm Gordon Gleeson, died 1 June 2007.

Ghosts of Christmases past — 7 — 2015-2021

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Yes, a sudden leap forward, partly because Christmas posts get thinner as time goes on. I have also designed my “Christmas card” for 2022. I will “send” it by pinning it to the top of my Facebook feed close to Christnas, where all my Facebook regulars will see it. To a few I may message or email a copy.

Did you get/send cards this year? I have sent none and received so far one — that person is not online but is on the phone. Landline even! I will respond that way.

2021

On Facebook I noted:

To all my relatives and friends here on Facebook — have a safe and happy Christmas, and may 2022 be a lot less interesting than 2021 has been for many of us!

I was thinking especially of my niece Christine Parkes and her family.

Among other things there was also — they were still counting then….

:

Here I am, properly cautious on Monday at City Diggers…

The Queen’s Christmas Message 2021

These have run as a theme through this series of posts, marking the passage of time but also in my family as a still significant custom, whatever thoughts we may or may not share about the future of the Monarchy, particularly in Australia.

Her last one

2020

The no post post — Christmas in The Gong

Posted on  by Neil

First, thanks to the Sydney Boys High Old Boys Union — who might enjoy my Boxing Day post!



Spent many an hour as a kid gazing out the window at Apollo’s bum while Mr Levy droned on in execrable French…

2019

Can’t avoid the fires!

Posted on  by Neil

Do look at The Gospers Mountain ‘Monster’ — and that is just ONE of the firegrounds in NSW at the moment, beyond which we have South Australia and Victoria. Gospers Mountain is now more than SEVEN times the size of Singapore!

Nearer home we have Green Wattle Creek. Of part of that our Premier said:

There is “not much left” of the township of Balmoral following Saturday’s devastating firestorm through the hamlet south west of Sydney, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.  “We have got the devastating news that there’s not much left in fact [in the] town of Balmoral.”

… And here is my cousin Ray Christison in Lithgow itself. He writes: “Big day for an old bloke. Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and support. I just want to clarify something. I’m not in the RFS and was working yesterday as a museum volunteer. I have considered joining the RFS over the years but know I would be allocated to a communications role.”

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I simply refuse right now to join in the political argey-bargey, though I will say that it was a bad Robo-Scomo moment when he doubled down on the government’s rather tawdry record on climate change — unlike the Premier of South Australia this morning, to name but one. Clearly we need to think long and hard as a country about this — but equally we need to avoid slogans and oversimplifications….

2018

Hail December!

Posted on  by Neil

Yesterday was pretty dramatic — though Wollongong again pretty much escaped.

Storm-Sydney

2017

Christmas snippets

Posted on  by Neil

This one just because I like it! Three of my grandnephews/nieces: Nathan, David and Lauren Parkes:

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I spoke to their uncle, my nephew Warren, who lives in North Queensland on Christmas Day. This is Warren:

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You might like to read A Guringai Family Story.

Since I came back to Wollongong it has become something of a custom to spend Christmas lunch, or in the case of this year Boxing Day lunch, with my cousin Helen Langridge and her husband Jim. See So, Christmas Day! (2016).…

2016

So, Christmas Day!

Posted on  by Neil

Christmas lunch today is as 2014:

This year’s Christmas as posted to Facebook yesterday: “Great sharing of memories back as far as the 1940s with my cousin and her husband at Mangerton today. Good food too — and shiraz. Thanks Helen and Jim Langridge.” Particularly poignant memories of Christmas 1951 at Chamberlain Avenue in Caringbah – my sister’s last one. Helen recalled it vividly – and yes I did apparently convince her that we could see Santa in the sky.

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2015

It’s Christmas already…

Posted on  by Neil

My Muslim neighbour kindly wished me “Merry Christmas” last week, not inappropriately given my “real” Christmas was in Surry Hills last Friday. This morning the lovely folk at the Yum Yum Cafe gave me this.

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So Christmas, eh! And not too hot here in The Gong this year.

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Finally, some vintage items from a lovely page The joy of collecting early Australian Christmas cards by Michael Aitken.

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And to remind you of my age:

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Yes, I was alive then…

And this post is in lieu of sending actual cards! I have been so slack!