It's Christmas Day

Christmas Day is all about family, so here's a picture of my son Sammy. In this picture he's just on his way to the school camp last week. In all these years I've never been able to convince him to go to a school camp, he just never wanted to go. Fortunately, or unfortunately, for him I never liked school camp myself, so never pushed him. It was all about being picked on by the tough kids. The absolute horror of growing into manhood. The showers at Narrabeen; where there are all the facilities for all the schools; where my family used to go water skiing. Where us obnoxious little kids could do a round of the lake on a single ski and not so much as get wet, we were so good at the beach starts and the elegant finishes.

But this year was different. The Duke of Edinburgh Award involves planning and executing a school trip, and this has kept the boys occupied and excited for the past two months. He was so well organised, never seen anything like it. His science teacher Mr Smith is a handsome sunny bloke who's just great with the boys. They all love him because he's funny and gets them out of the classroom. They were away for three days, then Sam went up to Todd's for a couple of days before the school holidays set in, so he had a great time for a week.

Now he's gone up to be with his mother for the school holidays, as per our custody arrangements. It's all pretty simple, they live with me during the school term and her during the holidays, and it seems to be working out fine for the moment. Not that it's always been peaceful, but we don't want to dwell on that.

The city was very quiet today; almost no cars about. Hot, too, with the fire fighters predicting bad bush fires. I rang Koperburg, the head of the Rural Bush Fire Service the other day, and he was back on to me within minutes. Utterly quoteable. Old timers like me like old timers like him because he knows what he's doing, he's not frightened of the media, he's always happy to talk and he's always good for a quote; and he doesn't treat you like the enemy, or a management issue. Nor does he treat basic information as some secret resource to be dolled out in tiny fragments.

I've got four more shifts and then the month of January off. Can't wait. Looking at going to Streaky Bay in South Australia with Colin, or that's the plan at the moment. Had today off, but very quiet. Went down to Michael's for a late lunch and stuffed myself, didn't realise how hungry I was or how much I was eating. Emerging from caves for brief social interactions. Embarrassing. He's such a good cook. But with many of the old gang suffering various illnesses, the raging days are over.

Both kids are now up with their mom. I'm glad she's dealing with all the Christmas stuff, I was never very good at it. Sitting in a celebration with no cause to celebrate. My mother converted to a fundamnetalist Christian sect while we were growing up. We could har the sound of the American preacher in the early hours of the morning, when she liked to listen to what she regarded as God's representatives. We were meant to be fortunate with the knowledge that had been passed to us; here, far from the holy lands and far from the earth's main powers.

I was about 10 and my next brother down about eight when our family stopped celebrating Christmas. It was a pagan ceremony; the reindeer, the white man in the red suit, the piles of food, the gifts. On the road to excess lay the palace of wisdom goes the old saying; but was it really true?

We became the only kids on the street who didn't get Christmas presents, and we hung around with the other kids at the deadend, the beloved deadend, checking out all the things they had got; rubbing in our own deprivation. Christmas was always an awkward time; hard to get into the swing of things, particularly when you don't drink. So the kids are away in the heat in Moree, where it's up in the 40s, and we all wished each other merry christmas on the phone; in what has finally become a civilised and cooperative situation.


IRAQ WATCH:

It took a long time to get to 2000 dead American soldiers, but it seems to have hardly taken any time at all to get to 2100.

Here's some of what Reuters has to report:

By Lesley Wroughton
MOSUL, Iraq, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left Iraq on Christmas Eve confident that his cautious strategy to hand over security responsibilities to Iraqi forces -- a critical component for eventually declaring victory - was working so far.
The unannounced two-day visit ending on Saturday, which followed stops in Pakistan and Afghanistan, was considered a "stock-taking mission" that had been planned for months with the intention of capitalizing on Iraq's relatively peaceful Dec. 15 parliamentary election.
In public pronouncements and private meetings, Rumsfeld showed he clearly believes that the Iraq war has entered a new phase in which the U.S. role is shifting from occupier to supporter of Iraqi forces assuming control of their nation's security.
He was careful to avoid any prediction or timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. Asked by a soldier how he would define victory, Rumsfeld calmly replied: "a situation where the political process is successful, where security forces are sufficiently competent to take over the security responsibilities."