It’s that time of year again, when you aren’t even sure what day of the week it is and the days blur into one (usually helped by all that booze you bought between Christmas and New Year, just in case you ran out). After a while the conversation dips and despite your best intentions to engage with family and friends during the holiday this year, you find yourself drifting toward the TV of an evening for a quiet two hour mental break.
If you were lucky you happened this week, as I did, on a charmingly accurate British comedy entitled ‘What we did on our holiday’, featuring a who’s who of British comedic character actors as well as established stars, Ben Miller, David Tennant, (the rather wonderful) Rosamund Pike and, virtually playing himself, Billy Connolly. The film tells the story of a warring couple, their children and the trip to Scotland for the 75th birthday of the ailing patriarch of the clan (Connolly). While remaining witty and uplifting, the film traverses a range of issues such as life, family, relationships, parenthood and, just for completeness, death. Throw in a soulful soundtrack from the criminally underrated Waterboys and you have an under the radar cracker.
So apart from escaping from my relatives for two hours, given the time of year, the film got me thinking about a number of these themes. Sidestepping the rather enormous topic of Life, let’s talk about Family.
As the old saying goes ‘families are for life, not just for Christmas’ and sadly for many of us, this is all too true. Every year we gather with the best intentions of interacting constructively and positively with our whanau, and usually halfway through Christmas Day, we are already talking to ourselves in the bathroom, promising that if Uncle Jack mentions one more time that Trump has a point on immigration you’ll shove a mince pie where he won’t be able to retrieve it without medical help.
Let’s face it, families love each other (generally because they have to) and loathe a number of each other in almost equal measure. However, the positives do tend to outweigh the negatives. While some family get-togethers can resemble a bad day in Bosnia, who would miss some of the magical moments at the same gatherings. Blink and you’ll miss them, never to be repeated. For instance, three generations playing backyard cricket together or the wide-eyed youngsters incredulous to see the half-eaten carrot on Christmas Morning, having been left outside the previous evening for the reindeer.
What Christmas really does is remind you of the marvellous attributes of family (despite it revealing so many of the flaws). You realise that there is something rather reassuring about having the relatives you do, and while they can be irritating, at least they are dependable. Because, as Billy Connolly’s character in the film says:
‘None of that stuff really matters in the end’.