By Marley Muirhead

What day is it anyway?

If like me you’re doing this time of year right, you’ll have absolutely no clue what day it is or what time it is. Like what even is a Saturday? So props to you for reading this. In honour of this sacred week between Christmas and New Years’ Day I’m going to talk about two reasons why it’s one of my favourite times of year.

My family and I get super creative with food in these seven days. Christmas Day my Ma normally does any bird that isn’t turkey (this year was an excellent goose) with roast spuds and all the trimmings. But Boxing Day is a whole ‘nother story. I’ve heard rumours that for other families it’s revered as the official lazy day. For us, it’s my brother’s birthday. That means all five-thousand family members (my grandmas had some fun marriages) descend to our house and cook enough food to feed the Caribbean islands they’re from. Literally you could boil a couple babies in the pot they cooked rice in. Still have some left over if any of y’all are hungry. So once the clock strikes twelve the morning of the 27th not a soul in our house is cooking. We throw and fling together random bits of food like a shitty sequel to those M&S food ads. And it’s glorious. I literally look forward to the same sandwich every year which is just random meat, veg and layers of cheese. So bloody good. I will say, it gets a bit less cute as the days go by. As we approach the 31st you start to see some Frankenstein’s monster-type cuisine going on. But why cook when you could have oxtail, egg fried rice and three mini toblerones your little cousin didn’t nab while he was here? 

The other thing is that we actually live in the moment. Like I said, no one has a bloody clue what day or time it is. Name another time of year where that happens nationally. After the months of pent up stress and to-the-T organising leading up to Christmas we’re not about to jump on another timetable or schedule. Who the hell has the energy? Plus, we’ve got New Years to care about. Bookended by two of the epics of our calendar, this week is made of blank pages we can do whatever the hell we like with. We slow down. We take a breather. We don’t wear trousers and we drink at eleven am. For myself, I love that my family are all at home. Especially now with the amount of my time I dedicate to the course, it’s nice knocking a bedroom door and watching a movie in silence or not. We spend quality time that I think is more special than Christmas because there’s no pressure and no expectation. That’s exactly what we all need before a new year starts. 

I hope you’re all enjoying this fuzzy little week we’re having. I know I am.