The Psychology of Cows

I love Christmas. I really do. But this Christmas I could have done without.
It all seemed so good. I had booked flights using our credit card points and we were staying at my friend's house while they were overseas. Free flights, free accommodation and my sister had offered to do Christmas lunch (usually my job) so I could sit back and relax for a change.

Unfortunately the husband doesn't share my enthusiasm for Christmas and had misgivings about several aspects of our trip. Our first hurdle was my brother offering to pick us up from the airport. My brother is a typical 20 year old yobbo and has, in his two years of driving, rolled a car, been caught speeding and recently rear ended somebody writing off his own car in the process. The husband objected to being chauffeured by somebody with such a bad track record. Unfortunately both my parents had been sick so the question of who was going to collect us was a difficult one. But my Dad dragged himself out of his sickbed and did the 1 ½ hour drive to the airport. I started to worry about him when he missed two turn offs, but we made it home safely and my Dad went to bed early.

Santa had forgotten to pack the present for my girl so the husband and I took my Dad's car into town to find a replacement. The husband was very edgy and moody by this stage and going through the crowds on Christmas eve wasn't helping. We found a present, paid some Salvation army ladies $2 to wrap it for us (so Santa's paper would be different from all the others) and I dragged the husband to a bar to ply him with beer and hopefully improve his mood and strengthen his resistance to my insane family.

It seemed to work and the evening went well until it was time for bed. My parents house is pretty big and even though they have enough furniture to fill 4 houses for some reason they don't have many spare beds, so the husband and I were relegated to the caravan to sleep. My Mum bought the caravan in the early 70's and it's comfortable enough except the fly screens have started to fall apart. My parents place also has lots of trees and my Mum fanatically collects water where ever she can. The result is that their property is a mosquito haven. So before I retired I checked all the caravan windows, closed the ones that had damaged screens, put tape over any holes I couldn't close and climbed into the small bed. The husband decided to stay up and wait for my yobbo brother who had gone drinking with his buddies. The yobbo and his mates had drunk most of their money and were sharing a taxi home. About halfway home the yobbo decided he needed to urinate so asked the taxi to pull over. Unfortunately their funds didn't stretch to a toilet stop so his request was denied. In defiance he wound down the window and relieved himself. Not surprisingly the taxi driver immediately pulled over and threw him out. He walked the remaining 5kms home. So by the time he got there the husband had made his way through two bottles of wine. They sat and talked and eventually the husband wobbled his way to the caravan and fell into bed, leaving the door of the van open.

The next morning, covered in mossie bites, we went through the rituals of Christmas. The girl played with the spirograph from Santa and the adults drank champagne and ate panettone. We waited for my sister and her family to arrive before doing the presents - she was putting the lamb and pork on the spit for lunch.

We all did pretty well present wise: I got series one and two of Star Trek Enterprise and all ten Star Trek films, a beautiful necklace that has a large black stone and a skeleton hand and Nigella's Christmas cookbook. The husband got a stack of obscure Goth CDs I sourced from the States, including two of Crime and the City Solutions, also a pair of spider cuff links and some horror films including "Christine" which was my dig at him for bingling my car a few weeks ago.

The girl, who has been complaining about "all the creepy Goth stuff in the house" opened her present from us, saw a skull on the front of the book and very melodramatically rolled her eyes and then collapsed on the floor. Later, when she discovered that it was a pop-up book of human anatomy and not creepy Goth stuff she was fascinated.

At midday the phone rang – my Grandmother and Great Uncle had arrived at my sister's place to find no-body home. So I hurriedly grabbed what I needed and my siblings and I jumped in a car. I couldn't find the husband before I left and I worried for his safety alone with my parents.

At my sister's house the spit roasting meat smelt fantastic and I busied myself making drinks for my elderly relatives. My sister took a large, raw chicken from the fridge and began prepping it for the oven. "It won't take long" she said. Suddenly understanding that lunch was hours away I asked about entrée "Prawns" she said, and pulled two trays of prawns from the freezer. I was horrified. My mobile rang, my husband yells down the phone "Where are you? You've left me alone!" he was about to get in a car with my parents to make the 4km journey. I reassured him and got back to helping with lunch.

My mother handed my husband a tray of jellies in glass bowls as he sat in the back of the car. She had made "frog in a pond" for the kids, except she didn't have any blue or green jelly so had used red. She also didn't have any chocolate frogs so had used grapes. About 500 meters up the road they discovered their neighbour's cow wandering the road. My Mum stopped the car and jumped out to go alert them their cow was out, yelling at my Dad to get the car off the road. My Dad drove the car up a driveway then got out to go help round up the stray beast. My Husband, still sitting in the back of the car balancing his tray of grapes-in-blood become somewhat alarmed when the driverless car began rolling backwards. Fortunately my Dad was able to jump back in the car and put the handbrake on. He and my mother then proceeded to yell at each other about the cows most likely course of action as they chased it back into it's paddock. Eventually they arrived at my sister's place and my husband, still balancing the tray of jellies looked at me and said from between clenched teeth "don't ever leave me alone with them again".

At this point my Great Uncle asked when lunch was because he had taken his insulin shot some time ago and needed to eat. I panicked. "Mum, where are the Devils on Horseback you made?" I asked, "Oh, I left them at home. Get your brother to drive you over to get them". So I did. (It's only as I type this that I wonder why I needed my brother to drive me). About halfway there we met my Dad coming the other way, he had gone home to go back to bed (still unwell) but had then changed his mind, he had the aforementioned horse-doovers so we turned around and headed back.

I presented the food to my aging uncle, silently praying he wouldn't lapse into a hypoglycemic coma then noticed they were sitting out in the blaring midday sun without any cover. I fiddled around with umbrellas, made a joke about stapling a bed sheet over the eaves then asked my brother to drive me back to my Mum's to get another umbrella. The husband asked me to bring back more wine and I was glad he had found the only coping mechanism available when dealing with my family.

While we were gone my brother-in-law appeared with a bed sheet and a staple gun and they attempted to staple the sheet to the eaves as I had suggested. Unfortunately there was nothing on the other side to support it. So the sheet came down and they fiddled around trying to suspend it between the two umbrellas using clothes pegs. In between the activity my Great Uncle and my Grandmother sat, having a sheet dropped on their heads over and over. At this stage my husband decided his best bet was to remain out of the fracas, under the willow tree in the garden, with his bottle of wine, and make friends with the dog – a boxer named Carla.

By now, the lamb and the pork on the spit was cooked and my sister was reheating the frozen McCain's roast potatoes and steaming the life out of some vegetables. I asked where the turkey was "Oh I didn't get a chance to buy any" was the reply. But hadn't I run into her at the supermarket the day before? I bit my tongue. The gravox and the kraft cheese sauce appeared and I almost collapsed. I decided to join my husband and anesthetize myself.

After the main course (and the meat was gorgeous - home grown lamb) I busied myself reheating the pudding. I asked for a mixer to make the brandy butter with and my sister replied "I'm not getting that out, it's at the back of the cupboard", and she handed me a stick blender. I was about to explain how you can't whip with a blender but decided to just shut up and make do. I was annoyed and the couple of tablespoons of brandy turned into a damn good slug of brandy, then another for good measure.

I had varied my pudding recipe: using glace cherries, muscat raisins, prunes and figs, a block of 75% cocoa chocolate, real suet and lots and lots of rum. It was divine. I will stick with this recipe. After the family had raved about the cauliflower cheese they all baulked at the pudding and complained that the brandy butter was too strong.

We adjourned to under the willow tree, my brother-in-law went and sat in his nearby car and played with his new Navman. We teased my brother's girlfriend about how she could do much better for herself than that idiot yobbo. My husband and Carla the boxer snuggled together on a chair, the kids zoomed around on their new bikes and our conversation was occasionally punctuated by a female, American voice announcing "You have reached your destination".

Two days later, our backs aching from the cramped caravan bed, mosquito bites itching, dehydrated from avoiding the over flourided water, desperate for a real coffee and with a sigh of relief the husband, the girl and I boarded a train for the city.

The house we were staying in belongs to my friends and neighbours. They have a cat so I had been taking antihistamines for a few days and hoped I would be OK. We arrived safely and the girl gleefully set about rampaging through the kid's room. I think there is nothing better than unhindered access to another child's toys. She was also overjoyed at the prospect of sleeping on the top bunk and demonstrated to me how she could climb up and down and "wasn't scared" of falling.

The cat arrived home, looked at us and said "who the fuck are you and why are you in my house?" then walked into the kitchen and demanded to be fed.

I walked past my house, tried very hard not to seem like a nosy landlord but longed to go in and resettle in my home.

We caught up with friends and family and the next day the girl's father collected her and I spent the evening going through that transition wherein I am suddenly childless and have no idea what to do with myself. That night the husbands bowels were gripped with a gastro-like illness that left him debilitated and sick for over a week.

The next day I was leaving to go visit my paternal grandmother; the cat was in the kitchen having it's breakfast so I left the back door ajar as I didn't want to shut it in the house. The husband was home so I didn't think twice about doing it. Unfortunately someone who was prowling the laneways peered through the back gate and saw the door open. They ripped palings off the gate until they could reach through and unbolt it then ran in, grabbed the husband's phone and charger and his backpack which contained all of his beloved rings, the cuff links I gave him for Christmas, an almost new bottle of Dolce&Gabana cologne, his art supplies and the house (Blandberra) and car keys. Even more unfortunately the car keys had the only remote for the alarm/immobiliser on the husband's car. Ordinarily this would be a nasty blow, but as he was already sick and feeling low the impact of the loss was even harder. When you are sick or you've been robbed your instinct is to find a safe place, curl up in your nest and wait until the storm passes. The husband couldn't do that, we were in somebody else's home and even though he could curl up in a comfy bed it wasn't HIS bed and he became more miserable with each day that he wasn't able to enjoy his holiday.

For New Year's Eve we had offered to cook for about 20 people, which between the 2 of us would be a piece of cake but it was decided that the husband would be banned from the kitchen, apart from not wanting to infect my friends with the gastro bug there were also going to be two pregnant women attending and the consequences of them getting gastro could have been devastating. The husband didn't deal with this very well. He knew logically that he shouldn't be involved with food prep, but he loves to cook and the exclusion added to his misery. To deepen the insult I decided to change his menu. My sister had given me a huge leg of the lamb they had slaughtered for Christmas and the husband was going to curry it. I thought that was a waste since the meat was so tender and flavourful without any added seasoning and I wanted to just roast it, keep it simple to allow the meat's own flavours to stand out.

I had two kitchen hands to help me chop veggies, wash dishes and keep my champagne glass topped up. I'd already pre-prepped one of the entrees and the dessert so the day of cooking went relatively smoothly. I had a great time and was secretly glad to be doing it on my own as the husband can be somewhat controlling and bossy in the kitchen and doesn't often let me indulge my passion for cooking. The husband showed up just as the party was starting and having spent the day with his best friend he was in a good mood. The Party was fantastic, it was so wonderful to catch up with friends, to see the poor, miserable husband enjoying himself for a change and to just relax into a social situation with people I love.


Two days later we arrived home. Any money we saved with the flights and accommodation has now been spent replacing the husband's phone, getting the car towed to an auto electrician to have the immobiliser removed and replaced and the husband has started to replace some of his rings. The husband's bowels have started behaving normally and the dog has almost forgiven us for abandoning her. It could have been much worse; no-one died and we have all recovered from our various afflictions. The girl is away with her Dad and Grandparents for the next few weeks so the husband and I have some precious time alone.

I still love Christmas.