A Kentucky Fried Christmas Tale

It was December 25 and it was bloody hot - Christmas, or as my family like to call it “fucking Chrissy”. The morning of fucking Chrissy starts way earlier than most mornings, even the laziest members somehow drag themselves out of bed before 6am. Dad's already on the couch, he fell asleep there last night after knocking back a few cold ones, can’t blame him really, it was 36 degrees yesterday. My four sisters are all sitting around the Christmas tree eyeing off blatantly obvious gifts that are terribly wrapped. For example, there is a hair straightener. Mum thought it was a good idea to take it out of the box. Well at this point I am actually only guessing it’s a hair straightener and if it’s not, then my sister has just got a pair of tongs for Christmas and shit's about to go down.

Another present, not in its box but clearly wrapped, is a perfume, or a grenade. Another, also not boxed though I guess this time mainly because it doesn’t come in a box appears to be one of two things, a book or a chopping board. Probably a chopping board. Food's a big part of our family, not in a good way though. After I get through the presents I’ll tell you all how lunch went. You won’t believe it. Anyway, dad's grunting now, he’s more than awake, asking which unboxed Lynx shower pack is his, and which is mine. I think mum has a theory, the more shit she takes out of the packaging and wraps the more shit goes under the tree, the more presents it appears. So yeah anyway, after unwrapping my shower gel, then my can of deodorant, and my shower sponge, Dad comes in with a six-pack of VB.

"Here ya go mate, merry fucking Chrissy." He lights a cigarette and cracks the top of my beer, and he drinks it. He then hands me one of my beers as if it was one of his beers. Its 7am, and I really don’t want to drink beer, but dad's giving me the 'make me proud son' look. Oh here’s a funny part of the morning, so mum tagged one of the gifts to my sister wrongly. Should have seen her face when she opened up her present and it was a pair of tongs for the BBQ.

The usual stuff happened in the morning, dad was well on his way before 9am, I went back to sleep for an hour, my sisters put up tinsel and a silver merry Christmas shiny banner across the back fence. Mum put the order in for lunch. I know what you are thinking? Order? What order? Who the fuck orders on fucking Chrissy? They must be some fancy rich family with a personal delivery chef (which I know, you know, we are not at all). I’ll explain in a second, I just think you should all know that while most Australian Christmases are spent sitting around one of those white outdoor table sets or if you are really lucky the glass top one with the hole for the umbrella in the middle, ours is spent sitting on the chairs that come with that white table set and we use our laps as our tables.

This year mum addressed that problem, and instead of having the salad on my sister’s lap and the meat on my mum's and the coleslaw and the chips and the dip and the lollies and pavlova spread from me to my grandma, she devised the perfect Christmas lunch. Midday rolled around pretty quickly, and dad has drunk all my beers and half of my sister’s vodka. Our lunch order has arrived. Two family feasts and a super variety bucket. To break that down for you... my Christmas lunch was KFC. And a lot of it, packaged in buckets, and boxes. And not an inch of salad in sight. For those not too familiar with KFC, this is what we had - 15 pieces of original recipe chicken, 18 Kentucky nuggets, two large potato & gravies, three large chips, 1 large coleslaw and three dipping sauces. And to further satisfy the family - 20 more pieces of original recipe chicken, four large chips, two large potato & gravies, two large coleslaws (you know, to be healthy) and 2 x 1.25L drinks.

Mum was so impressed with her decision making, and everyone else was for that matter too, even though I had no idea when the last time we had KFC was. Everyone else seemed to know clearly that it had been bloody months, even my sister was spurting fucking yays when she saw the red and white bucket plunk itself at her feet. I don’t want to freak you all out so I'll spare the details of how this chicken was eaten, or how many hands touched each piece, needless to say I’m sure there wasn’t one bit of food that wasn’t touched by someone else and put back because they decided they wanted another piece instead.

Long story short, I had 11 secret herbs and spices for my fucking Chrissy lunch.