Saving on costs and stress: Why I'm not doing anything for Christmas
This Christmas we've decided to do something completely different. We've decided to do nothing. (Supplied)
Christmas is the nine-letter word I dread.
The torment in the lead-up to the big day goes for months, not weeks.
Supermarkets are ramming baubles and tinsel down your throat before the end of October. Mariah's earworm whirls around everyone's heads from early November. And shopfronts have signs proclaiming "only 100 shopping days left before Santa visits".
Seriously?
As if I don't have more important things to think about in the next 100 days than the many unwanted gifts I'll scramble together in the dying hours, which I'll wrap furiously on Christmas Eve in birthday-themed paper (all I have in the cupboard) while forgetting to take the price tags off.
For the last few Christmas Days, my partner and I have either travelled to rural Queensland or south to Melbourne.
Over the years, we've spent hundreds of dollars on fuel and flight costs; endured delayed planes and cancellations; put up with our respective family's tensions and quirks; sat for hours with a screaming baby in horrendous traffic; experienced stifling heat and no curtains; and dealt with irritating hangovers from the cheap champagne we felt obliged to drink.
We've lugged kilos of presents from state to state; picked up and dropped off respective family members at various locations; met distant relatives whose names we have forgotten by the time we've returned home; and spent days worrying about whether the neighbour remembered to water the garden for us while we were away.
We've always returned home by the end of December more frazzled than we left.
This year we've decided to do something completely different. We've decided to do nothing. That's right, nothing.
We're not driving more than 25 kilometres from our house. We're not attempting to cook for 45 people. And we're not going to endure family snipes aside from our own, sit in hours of traffic, spend thousands on airplane tickets or battle long airport queues.
Given the cost of living in Australia these days, plus the fact we are desperately trying to drum up a deposit for a house, we are going to save a fortune.
Just quietly, I can't wait.
There will be no need to impress anyone. No pressure to perform in the kitchen or endure the "what have you been up to this year?" conversations with the cousins you only see once a year.
Instead, we'll probably have prawn sandwiches and a good bottle of bubbly for dinner, sleep in our comfortable and well-ventilated house, enjoy the beach we live a two-minute drive from and not have to worry about our toddler's sleeping arrangements or what he is going to have for dinner at the in-laws.
We'll open our respective gifts whenever we want, watch whatever terrible Christmas movie my partner chooses and enjoy the feeling of not having to be anywhere.
Given the fact we've always been the ones travelling to see our extended families, if they really want to see us this year, they can all jump in the car for five hours, hop on a delayed flight, battle holiday crowds and sleep in our cramped spare room.
It sounds selfish, I know.
Perhaps I am a modern-day grinch.
It's a title I can easily live with, particularly if it means being able to lie on the beach all day.
Prudence Clark is a freelance writer who lives in Lennox Heads.
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