Let’s face it — Christmas isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

In the lead-up, there’s a lot of trawling around shops trying to buy things for teenage nephews that last year liked basketball and violent rap music, or old aunties that spend a lot of time on cruise ships photographing penguins.

I have no idea what might spark their interest this year, so an ocean-scented candle and a graphic novel on LA gang wars will have to do.

The older I get the more I think that despite the shopping battles and kitchen wars, Christmas is always a good time to be curious and ask penetrating questions about the world and why we do things we do — like what is Christmas and why do we do it?

I find I do my best thinking while walking, so a walk on Christmas morning, before the madness of the day begins, has become a personal ritual developed over many years of Bing Crosby singalongs and brave-faced paper hat humiliation.

But the intriguing thing about a Christmas morning walk is this: why does it feel so different to every other morning walk?

I walk the same bush loop every day — across the neighbour’s paddock mowed to dust and leaves, through the gate, up past the sand depressions used as skid pans by motorbikes and stolen cars, down the river path and past the giant old hollowed-out gums, then home along the dried-out billabong.

Along the way, I say hello to the strutting magpies with puffed out chests, the paper-tearing cockies and that whoop-slap chickaroo call that still mystifies and annoys me because I don’t know which bird it belongs to.

It all feels so familiar and ordinary.

But on Christmas morning everything is different.

The neighbour’s paddock is clean and soft, the sand depressions are sculpted and sparkle like new beaches, the magpies are still a bit cheeky but now they’re also majestic.

Why is this?

It’s the same path I walked yesterday but today it’s changed. It happens every year on my Christmas morning walk.

The air is luminous and I can see for miles. My steps are light, and the sky is infinite in its depth and mystery.

I have no belief in a prime mover or intelligent design. The birth of Jesus is a wonderful story that celebrates children and the promise of new life. But it’s still a story, told and written down long ago by bearded men with an agenda.

So it must be Santa. But I sent my last letter to him 60 years ago and he still hasn’t replied.

So what is this difference I feel as the gum leaves and twigs crunch under my feet on this sunny Australian morning?

I can only put it down to the weight of Christmases past, when the world really was fresh and exciting and the big sock hung on the handle outside my bedroom door offering in my dreams a new Famous Five book, a fresh orange, a sixpence and a tray of Turkish delight.

When my mother would spend days in the kitchen to bake ginger biscuits and stir the bread and onion sauce for the turkey, and my father would do his damn best to be jolly while he carved the turkey at the head of a table of three fidgeting boys and a bossy girl in a tartan skirt.

I can only explain why the sand depressions sparkle and the sky looks infinite today because I know my grandchildren are now also waiting for their own sixpences to be discovered outside their bedroom door and for their father to be jolly and carve the turkey while they fidget.

The magic of Christmas is not contained in tinsel and the perfect present.

It has never been explained by doctrine or mystifying ritual.

It happens when we pass along the thread of human life — and little fingers always have the strongest grip.

• Happy Christmas everyone and may your new year be full of promise and endless curiosity.

I am now taking my annual summer break to recharge my writing batteries.

We’ll talk again in February.

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Monday, 23rd March 2026

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