Originally published by The Clifton Courier, February 7, 2019

If you were to venture into my parents’ house at the moment, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were a little bit slack.

Now, well and truly into February, the Christmas decorations are still up. All of them. The tinsel is still wrapped around the exercise bike that never gets used. The paper Nativity scene my oldest sister made more than 20 years ago sits on the fireplace. The overzealously bejewelled rocking horse ornament an extremely extra preschool-aged Dannielle still demands your attention from a prominent branch of our fake plastic tree.

It’s all still there.

My parents used to leave the decorations up until after my birthday in January, but this year they’ve been left up for an even bigger event (well, depends on who you’re asking, some would argue the anniversary of my birth is a pretty big deal).

They’ve been left up for our family Christmas, which is being held this weekend… just a smidgeon later than the actual Christmas.

We have many different names for it. FebMas. PretendMas. FakeMas. Basically just any word before the festive suffix “mas” that isn’t “Christ”*.

* I mean, not like “SatanMas” or anything like that. We’re slack, not devil worshippers. 

Because, in a time when you can celebrate the New Year with a hot cross bun (honestly, if a heavily-marketed bun being available for longer than a limited time of the year is the only thing that gets you fired up about the state of the consumerist-driven nation we live in, perhaps it’s time to re-examine a few things) and you can get Valentine’s Day cards for dogs*, why the heck can’t you have a second Christmas?

* I mean, I don’t know if these exist in the commercial world yet, but if they don’t, that’s a business idea you’re more than welcome to run with so long as you send me a scented candle every financial new year for gifting you with this gimmicky scheme. 

What’s stopping you from glazing a ham, baking some gingerbread and forcing the people you love to spend more than 24 hours under one roof? Does it really matter that date is on the calendar when the vibe – eating too much food, wearing stupid hats, regressing back to your younger self – is the same?

It’s not that we’re replacing Christmas; we’re just going in for a second round. I mean, we did do Christmas at the time in our own separate ways. I may have spent the day at work, but I was still wearing a T-Shirt with a Home Alone quote on it. One sister’s Christmas Dinner may have been a Thai curry, but she kept the Yuletide tradition of eating an unnecessarily large lunch alive. And Dad still had to pretend he knew what was inside the package marked “from Mum and Dad”, he just did so at a different time than he usually would.

We’re all getting older and our lives are pulling us in different directions. This means that, sometimes, we’re going to be in different places at times we wish we weren’t. We’re not always going to be able to wake each other up at 5am for “breakfast chockies”.

We have to face it; we’re not always going to be around. Things are going to change, and they already have. Significantly.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t keep a bit of the magic alive.

And if that means gathering under the same mutually accepted delusion, than that’s just the way it’s going to have to be.

So we’re going to give that Shrek The Halls CD another couple of spins. We’re going to wear festive pyjamas at the wrong time of year. And we’re going to treat gingerbread as a breakfast food* when it is completely devoid of the nutrients and fibre punch you need to kick your gut into gear.

* Well, actually, we ended up have hot cross buns instead. I added bacon to mine!

Because it’s more than eating prawns or trying to save wrapping paper so it can be used next year (although, if you can do that, you’re winning at life). It’s about time, not a date. In fact, the true meaning of Christmas might not even be about Christmas at all.

Merry FebMas, everyone.