Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

Bang, bang, bang. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Happy New Year!

I survived the festive season without too many fireworks; and am emotionally intact, mostly in love with life and enthusiastic about the future. And though my optimism may be partly the fizzy after effects of cheap New Year’s Eve champagne and early morning Berrocca, I am pretty happy with what could have been a car crash of a Christmas season, 2008.

I was braced like a Victorian virgin on her wedding night for Christmas, seeing I had to split the kids with the ex and face a lot of Christmas Day on my lonesome. But the reality was much better than the anticipation, thank Christ (yep, the bloke who made us all eat too much and spend days with ugly relatives simply by being born around 2009 years ago). We celebrated Christmas a-la-middle-Europe, feasting with St Nick on Christmas Eve. And as a sole parent I have started family Christmas traditions that I like; I have no need to compromise. Out went the heavy baked ham and glutinous suet puddings of Christmases past, instead we feasted on Thai beef salad, shoals of seafood and crispy summer vegetables tumbled in French butter. The lucky sixpence I had purloined from my mother for Christmas dessert – its finder granted one wish – was buried deep in the sherry trifle I had made, heavy on the sherry, light on tradition.

For the third year running, my little family’s Christmas Eve meal had the happy addition of “orphans”, young friends from overseas who were spending Christmas in Australia, far away from their loved ones; temporary friends who sang “Jingle Bells” with my children and who, between courses, chased them through the streets of Bondi and played beach cricket as I rested, mum-like, in the shade.

Santa came quietly, later that night. He gave each of my boys an orange shoved in the bottom of the stockings at the end of their bed. He then filled the stockings with sweets, a special gift and a card from the North Pole. He’d figured out, somehow, that my boys had been nice for most of the year, and so deserved their gifts, which I got to see at 5:00 a.m. when my youngest bounced his beach ball off my head.

By 8:00 a.m. on Christmas Day we were submerged beneath the froth and foam of the waves off Bondi Beach. Mummy’s present had been a boogie board for each of the boys and we had to try them out straight away. The beach was filled with children excitedly destroying their new toys and parents watching their kids’ bliss with tidings of comfort and joy. I joined in, feeling so blessed with the happy, open faces and strong, healthy bodies of my beloved offspring, a special gift for me for 365 days a year.

The rest of Christmas day after the handover of my children was fine enough and another family adopted me as their Christmas orphan later that day. But as I walked home Christmas night I passed three other solitary people who seemed to be purposefully on their way to somewhere else. I knew by the way we avoided meeting each other’s eyes that, like me, they were more likely than not going to an empty home, eerily lit by a still-twinkling Christmas tree.

Getting my children back was pure bliss and we spent mornings at the beach and afternoons playing cricket and meeting friends with kids. My eldest son is playing cricket better than the Australian team at the moment, which isn’t that hard, unfortunately.

My children’s summer holidays are glossier blueprints of my own, when I used to spend a month with my sisters and my mother camping in Queensland, a hop, skip and a jump across molten hot midday sand to the cresting waves of Gold Coast beaches. My father spent most of the summer working, joining us at the weekends and soon filling the small caravan with the smell of the fish he used to catch after going surf fishing soon after shedding his workday clothes.

My children have more expensive holidays than my parents could ever afford, luxuriously crammed with outings and treats and hopefully more than enough love. My favourite line so far of the holiday has to be when my six year old, trying to catch a wave on his new boogie board asked me if I had seen the Boxing Day salami. Perplexed, I asked what he meant, he said “you know, did you go swimming and did you see the salami? Click, I got it then. “No, my darling, I missed the tsunami,” I answered as I pushed him onto a wave that carried him all the way to the beach. It was a great wave, smaller than a salami, but a great wave nonetheless.

Today is the 01/01/09. My birthday as well as the first day of the year. We said a big hello to 2009 last night with friends watching the fireworks explode over Coogee Beach. Schools of children ran around the grassy reserve beneath the shimmering lights, pausing to oooh and ahhh before, sugar rush assisted, continuing to run in excited circles.

As the crackle and pop of the light show rained overhead, I made a few, small resolutions which are my secret. I was glad to see the back of 2008, a year of transition for me, away from the sadness and madness of 2007 into calmer waters. I learnt a lot in 2008, but a lot of the learning cost me more than it needed to. I will ensure that 2009 will have more sugar to help whatever medicine I need to take, go down a little sweeter.

As I say to my kids, we are the luckiest people in the world. We live in a stable, safe country and have all the money we need, all the love we want and futures as bright and shiny as any firework display.

I found the lucky sixpence buried in the sherry trifle this year. My wish? That would be telling, but I am quietly confident of a year that will deliver many joys, many blessings and much love. To me and mine. And to you and yours too.

So, a peaceful, joyous and a Happy New Year to you from the Bondi Blonde.