ABSTRACT

For most of my childhood, I considered Christmas to be a rather dull affair. All our friends were with their relatives, but the only family we had did not live in Australia. At seventeen, I got fed up with these desultory Christmases and decided on some reorganization. Mum didn’t work on Christmas Eve and most of my friends were either at a loose end or out at parties. I decided to become one of those parties. I asked my friends to meet me at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and to come back to my place afterwards. I went out and bought a “live” Christmas tree—the biggest one I could find.