Trevor

Trevor

 Christmas is Mother's day in our house. And by that, I don't mean Mothers day gets skipped, but rather that Christmas is the sun, and we are the planets. 

She has a laminated checklist stuck to the inside of the pantry, it stays there all year round. Under the subheading, October, is "decorating". It begins with a slathering of outdoor lights to the roof, gutters, walls — anywhere that can hold a hook or a nail. Inside, snowflake pom poms are hung from the ceiling and little reindeer trinket dishes are placed randomly throughout the house which will be maintained with "christmas lolly mix". Under subheading, November, is "decorating stage two". The light-up reindeers are set in place, along with an illuminated landing strip for Santa's sleigh across our front lawn. The plastic christmas tree makes an entry, propped up on a pedestal, like a shrine to stuff and things. She covers it with tinsel of various colours and baubles in every size, shape and colour, including the handmade ones we made as kids in kindy. Under subheading, December, the outdoor lights become synced to her favourite carols, which are played nightly from 7pm to midnight. The inflatable Santa is pegged to the lawn, the nativity set is carefully displayed under the tree, thirty years’ worth of used Christmas cards are hung on a string across the lounge room and strange little elves start to appear nightly, propped up in different places around the house. Then finally, the presents—donned in eclectic patterned papers with stick-on bows and metallic ribbon start to pile up around the tree and across the loungeroom floor. 

Subheading Christmas morning looks like this;

We begin early. Like the elves helping Santa. Mum sets the alarm for 6am and hits snooze until 9am because she's always had too much brandy the night before. The weather girl announces that the sun itself will be descending from heaven. Mum never cares about this, because she reminds us every year that, "Christmas isn't Christmas if it's not an outdoor Christmas," she even wrote a song about it once. "I'll cool you down with a spray bottle," is her annual response to our plea for survival.  

This year, she said she wanted Christmas to look "extra fancy" and threw out last year's Rudolph tablecloth in favour of white plastic with a mistletoe print. She said the plastic deck chairs needed to be "jazzed up" and ordered me to find her box of craft supplies. She said she’d once seen a segment on Better Homes and Gardens about how to make ribbon bows, so she'd give it a try once I finished cleaning the bird shit off the chairs. 

She played Delta Goodrem's Christmas album while we set up outside. Every so often, we'd pick up the spray bottle and spritz ourselves in the face. When it hit the forties, we left the sprinkler running so we could run in and out after each task. Mum set the table while me and Danny finished stocking the esky — full to the brim. 

“Now, doesn’t that look fancy!” Mum said, stepping out to the lawn to marvel at the decorated pergola. “I'll tell you what, girls, you don’t need big bucks to have fancy things, just a plastic table, some creativity and the spirit of Christmas,” she said, wiping her upper lip sweat with her pinkie. She'd been on Pinterest all week, practising different serviette folding techniques and had settled with swans after her angels looked like half-peeled bananas. The red and green holographic bon-bons on each plate were like mirrors in the sun. 

"Mum! Take those things away until the sun goes down!" I said, shielding my eyes, "I'm going blind."  

"Shoosh you," she said, "and go put a Chrissy-tee on please, you look very unfestive." 

Mum had been in the annual Aldi ham fight, shoving people with her trolley to get the first release of Christmas hams. Her boyfriend Trevor, sat in the kitchen eating twiggy sticks listening as she retold the story the same way she did to Rick last year and Andy before that and Ron before that. The boyfriend changes every year, the story stays the same.

Lunch, went like it did every other year. We gorged on ham, devilled eggs, cheese and store-bought salads which mum decanted into Christmas bowls and garnished with sprigs of parsley. Then we sat around waiting for the prodigal son, Evan to make an appearance. By the time he arrived, we’d popped the bon-bons, and were sitting around the table wearing our tissue-paper crowns. The beer was almost finished so we'd hung the bladders of the box wine onto the clothesline anticipating a game of goon-of-fortune. 

Evan arrived empty-handed, in a suit, announcing that he couldn’t stay for long the second he’d closed the screen door.

"Evans here!" Danny shouted. 

"Bladders are on the line," I chimed in ushering him down to the lawn.

“Let him say Merry Chrissy first girls,” Mum said, tapping the chair beside her.

Evan grabbed a swan and began to scrub the chair.

“It’s just stained from the weather darlin’," she said, blowing her cigarette smoke into the wisteria above. 

He looked like he was holding his breath as he sat down.

“There's plenty of food still love,“

“I'm not hungry, I ate before I came,” he interrupted. 

He sat there with a look on his face I'd never seen before — upturned lip, upturned nose, scouring his eyes across the table at Mum’s decorations like a lost puppy—not the type I’d take home. Maybe it was the four litres of punch, or the stupid tie pin he was wearing or maybe that he was wearing a tie at all, but I blurted, “Why would you eat before you came? Mum had to fight two blokes at Aldi for that ham, and cooked it for hours you disrespectful little —” 

 “Stop!" Mum interrupted, "it’s Christmas! I’m not having any of this on Christmas.” Her face changed from Christmas to Boxing Day, and then back to Christmas as the air from her deep breaths seemed to make its way to her brain.

 “How about a drink then? There’s no punch left, but there's plenty of wine?”

"On the clothesline," I added.

“No Mum, I’m fine. I’m off the alcohol.”

“Oh! He's off the alcohol! What’s next then? Are you going to join the buddhist monks and live on some mountain or something?” I poked.

“I won’t—” Mum started.

“No! Mum, Evan thinks hes too good for us all ever since he moved to the city. What? Are you too good for Christmas or something Evan?” 

Mum sat, staring at her plate shaking her head. 

The crickets had been chirping, but we only noticed when they stopped. Fumes of citronella crept up my nostrils as they flared in and out, waiting for Evan to react. But he didn’t. He sat quietly, allowing Mum to finish her pavlova. She was sighing loudly between mouthfuls, and pretending everything was fine on her precious Christmas Day. After she put her fork down and reached for a jelly shot, he stood up with ministerial posture and spoke.

“Christmas is about the gift of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus. He is the reason I have everything I have today, and the reason I’m alive. This… this… celebration you're having is nothing but a ritual of greed and materialism. I’ll pray for you,” he paused, “both of you.”

Mum, Danny and I stared at each other; our mouths hanging into our leftovers. 

“You’re bent!” I finally said “There's nothing wrong with our life, so get over yourself.” I said, standing up.

Evan grabbed his keys and walked inside. Mum didn’t try stopping him, but she did have one last thing to say. 

"Evan," she called, maintaining eye contact with a strawberry on her plate, “the reason you’re alive, and have everything you have, is because I called an ambulance every time I found you passed out, and drove you to your physio appointments after your car crash, and lied for you when you were charged with assault—.”

Evan swung around and launched himself across the table at her, slamming his fists down on either side of her plate. He shoved his face as close into hers as he could stretch and grunted, “No mum! You’re the reason all those things happened!” The vein on the side of his neck bulged as he said it. I swear I could hear it pulsing. 

Danny had wandered off to the clothesline and had opened the tap of one of the bladders of wine, letting it drain into her mouth.

Mum threw a swan at her dessert plate and tilted her head back, closing her eyes. Then Trevor, who hadn't spoken a word since her heroic ham story, finally spoke up.

 "You tried, love. Next Christmas why don't we skip all this fuss and relax at the pub."

Silent night in our backyard matched the birth of Jesus. 

"I tried?" She whispered, "I tried?!" She yelled. There was no saving him now. "You think this is all just a fuss? Christmas at a pub Trevor? Who are you? Get out of my house!" She screamed, hurling a plate from the deck, through the screen door where it collided with an elf and smashed against a wall. 

Danny, Evan and I put Trevor in his car and waved goodbye. 

Evan spends Christmas reading his bible on the beach now, he says Christmas is a bogan tradition. But our tradition stays the same. 

Sub heading Christmas night: Get rid of mum's boyfriend.