Christmas with family

Gum trees standing tall amid the scorching sun. Home for Christmas day, each and every one. Old Sam from the house next door, Accepted our invite to share lunch once more. Each year on Christmas day he joins us, as long as I have known. It wouldn’t be right for him to spend Christmas all alone. Those that didn’t get home from Midnight Mass til early morn, Opening gifts at the crack of dawn, look tired and a little worn. Mum comes in hot and disheveled and tells us all to take a seat. We know by the aroma we are in for a Christmas treat. We carry baked veg and gravy, Dad brings the turkeys to carve. A slap-up lunch with all the trimmings no-one here will starve. Mum hops up to bring dessert and complains of the kitchen heat. Plumb pudding, its 42 degrees says Dad you woman have got me beat. Ice cream would have done as he hands his pudding dish for more. Once all the food was eaten old Sam offers thanks galore. He musters the children to sit around him on the loungeroom floor. As he begins telling them a story of a magical tour. The children are enchanted as into his memory he reaches. Wonderous stories of things they’ve never seen, describing beaches. Golden sand and dolphins surfing the waves of oceans blue. Country children that had never seen a beach. His stories are so new. Dad stretches in his favorite chair saying what a great Christmas Day. The Children gather their new toys, and some begin to play. Sam in his big raspy voice begins singing carols. All join in one by one. Mum quietly exclaims. “There's still the washing up to be done.”