How to nail Christmas Day

Christmas was a traditional affair when Julia Morris was a child. The Catholic family would attend mass the night before in their hometown of Gosford, open their gifts the morning of and then hit the road to see their Sydney-based relatives.

- Julia Morris

My father was from a really big family,” she says of the annual pilgrimage. I remember eating all that food and then chucking it up on the windy road. These were the days when we didn’t have seatbelts. Surely it’s asking for trouble to put little kids in the car and drive them in those days it was a two-hour drive just for a great big family fight we weren’t involved in. Everyone drank until they were silly as ticks never the driver though) and then fought that was Christmas back in the 70s! Thank God those days are gone.

“We got rid of all the horrible relatives years ago. Conflict? See ya! As I get older, the need to do stuff to be polite or that is the right thing’ has dissolved in me. I just don’t have the bandwidth for it. m not going to sit in a room with someone who’s been mean to my dad.”

The day has since taken on many shapes and forms from her prechildren years in the UK where she partook in Orphan’s Christmas” with friends to a couple of low-key affairs in more recent times with toasted sandwiches replacing the traditional ham and turkey supper. And, in the wake of her split from husband Dan Thomas 18 months ago, it’s changed once more.

“Luckily we’re all pretty chill about the whole thing,” she says of navigating the holidays with two teenage daughters.

“The girls have got the best of both worlds they get to spend time with us both and double the presents!

It’s really more what the girls want than what we want and we're definitely on the same page about that.”

But despite all the flux, one thing hasn’t shifted throughout that time: Julia’s love of all things Yuletide.