Thunderstorms and heavy rain have dampened the once traditional Australian Christmas: off to the beach for a picnic or in the backyard for a BBQ. Humour has always been a part of my own family’s tradition and choosing films to watch – like the ritual and the feeling of Christmas has arrived – like A Christmas Story (1983) and the Australian film Crackers (1998) are one tradition with the inclusion of more darker stories like the Finnish film Rare Exports (2010) I enjoy: accepting imperfection and laughing instead of crying over warped stars on top of hacked trees with bickering relatives and distant intimacy.
A BBQ with a flamed dog, a Chinese spontaneous Christmas dinner because the dogs ate the turkey or simply the horror entrance of evil Santa cracks the seriousness of the day. A Christmas Story with a narrator, a BB Gun and children delighted my mother just as much as all hands helping delighted her for an easy Christmas day. She laughed and watching and participating in my own mother’s laughter was a gift and supported accepting imperfections, distance and tough times whether with her or throughout life. Ralphie was the story that became a part of ours. Their let downs and disappointments as well as problem-solving techniques revealed the fissures, cracks and need to accept diversity and imperfection in our lives. I have looked on at those who are determined with perfect images for Christmas with a chuckle: what if their star went up in flames, How would they cope?
A dysfunctional Australian family produced some thoughts and memories of BBQ’s, one lane travel behind caravans slow and wide, as well as the occasional infidelity that destroys others’ perfect stories about visiting family and keeping up appearances. The working class humour is enjoyable and distant from the reality that agitates and anxiously denies – a few stories of seriousness when getting it wrong leading to almost murderous endings because humiliation is often the downside of working class consciousness in other settings.
Laughter is grounding and satisfying. I haven’t needed excess wealth for that. I have had a floor where a dance teacher once reminded her class “The floor is your friend!” And that thought, her laughter, finds me grounded in my own imperfection and cracking laugh. The earth and gravity is your friend, your centre and centre-point for feeling and joining with the music. It has a history beyond humanity and holds the keys to sustainability and relationships – if we open ourselves to this friendship.
I have lived through fires, floods and water restrictions and the people around me have retained a sense of community and humour within their own circles and lives. The floor forthat dancer was the earth mother, was her connection to spirituality, future, present and past. The floor gave her strength no matter what age and was to remind women (no men present at the time) that they weren’t ballet dancers ethereal in flight, and that didn’t matter. They were requested to feel and to feel grounded and loved by themselves and the earth. Like laughter and experiencing that in the family home, dance grounds and accepting mortality.
Connecting is, like the title Crackers suggests, a pulling the Christmas cracker together as well as a little mad or “crackers”. The madman or the mad in these films hold a lantern, or light, to shine into our lives to remind us to live and feel alive accepting imperfection, feeling the ground and gravity’s pull.
© Cate Andrews, 2023.
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