Jon Morgan

You may remember 2020 as the year Covid began. That also made Christmas 2020 the first Covid Christmas, before 2021 gave us the bad re-run nobody wanted. In those two Christmases we had new experiences, new troubles, and even some new carols.

It’s now thirty days before Christmas 2024 (where does the time go?!?) and here in Melbourne the decorations are well and truly up. When better to reflect on that increasingly distant time?

A new carol for 2020: Christmas With You

I don’t think it’s possible to really understand Christmas 2020 without remembering what came before it. Christmas came at the end of a long year, nine or ten months since Covid had gone from something worrying but potentially distant to something that affected everyone. Different towns and states and countries implemented restrictions differently, but there were few left completely unaffected by Covid.

Here in Australia, it had been a year of separation, of uncertainty, of isolation, and of constantly changing restrictions. A time when even the word “unprecedented” was being used an unprecedented number of times. And here in Melbourne it wasn’t just about Christmas, but about the coming of summer after a long, hard winter in lockdown.

Things weren’t going to be “normal”, but the hope was that with international borders largely closed and Covid transmission within the country eliminated, we could be closer to normal. But “close to normal” wouldn’t include in person choirs.

ABC Classic decided to commission a new carol to be sung by a virtual choir. The result was Christmas With You, composed by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon and sung by a virtual choir of 1,500:

The hope for Christmas was clear: We’d be able to end the merry-go-round of interstate border closures, and with open borders many more families would be able to be together for Christmas. Christmas would also mark the proper start of summer holidays, and give the tourist industry the chance to catch up a little from lengthy enforced shutdowns.

Yes, there was nervousness, but we were promised that it would be a great summer. And even if there was a Covid outbreak, it was summer - we’d be able to control it, right?

That was the context of this carol, dedicated “to everyone who has been parted from those they love in this year of loss and chaos”. It was about finding our way home for Christmas, including words like “We’ve been apart for so long now”, then concluded with:

I need no gift beneath the Christmas tree this year
Christmas with you is all I truly need my dear

Words which still bring tears to my eyes.

For me, talk about state borders coming down wasn’t very significant - the family members I was going to see at Christmas were living in Melbourne, and it had been more important being able to meet up in person again at the end of October. It didn’t affect my work much either - we’d made tentative steps towards returning to the office after more than eight months of full-time work from home (no Christmas party, though!)

But there were many who benefited from borders opening, and with the exception of the one Northern Beaches outbreak in Sydney I think most other state borders were open. I certainly know of people from Victoria who made it to Fortress Western Australia in December - a thing which even a couple of months before had seemed very unlikely. The outbreak in NSW did make its way to Victoria, though that wasn’t detected till after Christmas, and ultimately yes, it was controlled in both places.

So perhaps the situation in Australia didn’t quite live up to the optimism of the carol, but it went pretty well for those not in NSW. We couldn’t know what 2021 would be like, but here in Melbourne 2020 had ended fairly well after a long and difficult winter.

A global perspective

This carol was of course written by an Australian composer for an Australian context. For the rest of the world, the picture was grimmer. Here’s another carol to get you in the mood:

Newer, more transmissible variants were emerging, and for those in the northern hemisphere winter was coming. This meant they were likely to face both increased transmission and increased restrictions.

Effective vaccines had been developed, and so longer-term the key hope was that vaccination could control the virus. However, it would be a massive logistical exercise to roll the vaccines out, and many would be infected before they had a chance to be vaccinated. The countries I was most in touch with were the US (where I had friends) and the UK (my company’s head office).

One thing I particularly remember from the UK was then Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying a week before Christmas that it would be “frankly inhuman” to ban Christmas - then a few days later “with a very heavy heart” imposing strict restrictions anyway. Yes, I’d been OK with Christmas being celebrated in Australia if it were relatively safe. But it struck me as odd when people in other parts of the world were acting like Christmas was so important that it had to be celebrated - no matter what! Almost as if the virus would treat Christmas gatherings differently from other gatherings (spoiler: probably not)

I’d also be pretty sure that some of those insisting we couldn’t cancel Christmas were people who earlier in the pandemic had been hand-wringing over the potential for spread from Eid or Ramadan or Passover. If Christmas celebrations were more universal in a country, surely they’d be much more likely to trigger transmission than other celebrations and religious events?

A hopeful message

There was one house with encouraging messages that I’d walked past frequently during lockdown. So I wanted to see what it was looking like for Christmas. As expected, it was positive.

Merry Christmas was to mean family together:

Lockdown was over, and happy days were coming - again, to be spent with family:

They’d been hosting a Spoonville, and had added some Christmas spoons (as well as the AFL grand finalists for the year - both teams from Victoria, though with all the restrictions it hadn’t been able to be held at the MCG):

And their bear hunt display had also grown some tinsel and become more Christmas-y:

Summer travel

For me, November and December provided the first opportunity to travel since March. Given our border with NSW was then open, I took a week off to travel through the Victorian and NSW Alps.

There were various Christmas displays around, from the more Australian:

To the more traditional:

When climbing Kosciuszko (our tallest peak), I also saw snow for the first time in the year. Very seasonal, I’m sure…

Borders may have been open, but there were still reminders of Covid:

Though, curiously enough, on the day I entered NSW they were reporting one case, while Victoria had no known cases. See, it wasn’t just Victoria!

Some Christmas decorations

Despite our CovidZero status, larger Christmas events tended to be cancelled or run with significantly reduced crowds. But people still put out Christmas lights on their fences and in their gardens, and walking the streets admiring them made for the perfect socially distanced Christmas activity.

The snow theme was continued. And yes, we do have snowmen in our Christmas decorations, despite Christmas being summer and us not typically have snowmmen even in winter. Don’t judge us for it.

And as it’s summer, sometimes we need to be reminded that bushfire risk is a serious thing. Even if that reminder comes with Christmas decorations:

I think my favourite decoration was the Christmas Dragon:

While this sign definitely made me laugh:

(perhaps we needed that sign for compliance with constantly changing lockdown rules as well…).

There were Christmas trees:

And plans for special deliveries (CovidSafe, no contact deliveries, I hope…)

And finally, there was a weird and wonderful collection of transportation options for Santa while he was out delivering.

I’d never seen Santa riding a shark before:

(why is he riding a shark? I don’t know…)

Reindeer are of course traditional:

While kangaroos are supposed to be better fitted to Australian conditions:

But clearly we shouldn’t let Santa near any of these new-fangled vehicles while under the influence. He just can’t keep it level!

At least he’s a little better with his train, though maybe that’s because the snowman and the penguin are really in charge…

2021: The bad re-run

As it turned out, here in Melbourne 2021 was the bad re-run no-one wanted. We again had a long lockdown through winter and into spring, this time sharing it with NSW and ACT. There turned out to be no way to zero, so the way out was going to have to be vaccination.

When we reached 70% of the adult population vaccinated, there would be some extra freedoms. When we reached 80%, well, that was the magic number: Things could go back to normal. Well, for some version of “normal”.

It was a large logistical exercise acquiring the vaccine supply and then getting it to everyone who needed it in Australia - but it happened. As indeed it happened in many countries. And for our worst affected states, it happened well before Christmas.

The year may have involved extensive lockdowns, but as we approached Christmas there was that same hope held out as last year: after a difficult winter we were going to have a great summer. Given case numbers weren’t going down to zero again, that made borders more tricky than in 2020. States with lower case rates and lower vaccination rates could continue to bar travel from states with active cases, while states like NSW and Victoria actually opened their borders to international travelers without any quarantine period (the tension between the two approaches was perhaps most notably summed up by NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet saying NSW residents would be able to travel to Bali before Broome).

Given the opening of the borders was somewhat tentative, I’m not sure how many with relatives overseas actually saw them by Christmas. The “Omicron” variant started being talked about, and some of the border restrictions were brought back again. However, 2022 offered the real possibility of freedom of movement - not just between all Australian states and territories but internationally as well.

Another Classic Choir Carol: All Is Love

It was this atmosphere that led to ABC’s second Classic Choir carol, All Is Love by Katie Noonan:

Once again the message was about being together after having been forced apart:

More than ever I want to hold you in my arms
But now I close my eyes and hold you in my heart
Distance has made our love grow more and more
And the flower blooms in my heart

It was about family, yes, but not just about blood family:

Family is the bond that keeps us safe
Chosen, birth or rainbow all is love

Once again it brought tears to my eyes. In the years since, ABC have commissioned other Christmas carols, but I think this one is my favourite. It was fitting for its time, and it remains beautiful in our very different context today.

More summer travel

Given the year was turning into a re-run anyway, I took the opportunity in December to explore more of the Australian Alps. Sure, I’d have preferred the year to turn out differently, but at least in those two years I’d been able to explore most of the major road routes in the Victorian Alps and in Kosciuszko National Park. I’d visited high peaks and glittering caves, found hidden waterfalls and crashing waves, and experienced some wonderful sunrises.

But of course - where would I be without another chance to walk on the not-so-seasonal-in-summer snow? The route I’d walked in 2020 was actually closed because of the amount of snow on it, so I got to try a different route:

There were also Christmas decorations to discover. This time Bright had a large collection of Santas personalised for the different stores. My favourite was outside the ice cream shop:

While this one perhaps suggests a more Australian Christmas:

Jindabyne had put a bow on its kangaroo:

While Foster had a merry message:

(yes, those messages were on a pub’s windows - how did you guess?)

More Christmas decorations

Snowmen were involved, of course:

Melbourne’s very own Federation Square was decked out:

While Upwey had its Christmas trees out again:

As in 2020, Christmas lights still provided a socially distanced way of enjoying Christmas:

Mostly the deer got on just fine with Santa:

But this one, well - I have so many questions!

Did Rudolph push Santa over?
And is Santa waving just to be friendly, or to beg for help getting up?

Some of us need to know…

A Christmas at home

Just before Christmas, the then deputy premier (and, incidentally, also my MP) said:

This is the commitment that we gave to the people of Victoria. The promise was if you go and get vaccinated, you can enjoy Christmas and New Year with your families and loved ones and that’s exactly what will happen.

This was false. Somewhat predictably false, too. I pointed out at the end of November that our “living with Covid” strategy would involve many individuals placed in isolation more strict than lockdown had been. The price for most people being freer than in lockdown was that some people would be significantly more restricted.

I don’t know I expected it to happen to me - but perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, I had dared to be around crowds of people enjoying myself:

I’ve written about it elsewhere, but the quick summary is that I went to a Christmas concert the week before Christmas, and as a result was required to spend Christmas in isolation despite there being no good reason to believe I had Covid (I didn’t).

It wasn’t what I wanted, but it also wasn’t terrible: I watched Christmas movies I hadn’t watched before, had a goat curry delivered (contactless) rather than trying to have a Christmas dinner by myself, and generally survived just fine. Then was freed to attend a family meal on Boxing Day.

Bigger picture, though, my experience was part of that first Omicron wave, which spread far more quickly than we’d expected and affected many others far worse than me.

There were restaurants closing with staff in isolation or otherwise unavailable. There were people trying to travel interstate or internationally who needed to get Covid tests at short notice. And the testing sites, already being overwhelmed, were running shorter hours over Christmas. It only got worse after Christmas, and by the new year there were people who had managed to get tested who never even received their results.

Trepidation about the year to come

Understandably, in the lead up to Christmas there had been some trepidation about the year to come. I particularly liked this chalk message:

We’d been promised we’d had our last lockdown - but what would come instead? It wasn’t a time for signing up to New Year’s resolutions…

Next up: A couple of post-Covid Christmases

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the chaos of the final weeks of 2021 didn’t magically go away as 2022 came in. But that particular wave started to drop off by the end of January.

In October 2022, we allowed Victoria’s pandemic declaration to expire. Covid wasn’t over, sure - but practically speaking, it mostly was.

Perhaps Christmas 2022 wasn’t 100% normal, but I think it’s fair to say it was the first post-Covid Christmas. And on that note - I have more Christmas photos from 2022 and 2023 that I want to share before Christmas 2024 forces me to add to the list. We’ll see whether that actually happens…