Victoria Market - Christmas Eve

My family has developed a new Christmas ritual since we have lived in Australia. On Christmas Eve we turn up at the Victoria Market with a long list in our hand.

It’s an exciting time. Today we left home at 6.30am. The roads were quiet yet when we got to the market there was a queue to get into the car park and the traffic was at a stand-still. We whipped around the side of this queue and found a park nearby where we have parked every other year.

We hurried through merchandise area and saw one or two lone people beginning to open up. We noticed that we could buy a new barbecue brush. Cleaning the barbecue at our place is always a problem. I’d love to know how other people deal with this.

It’s exciting to enter the Food Hall and hear the stall holders shouting their wares. It’s always a joyous moment when we know that we have become part of a huge crowd all gathering goods to prepare for the same celebration.

Buying steaks and sausages is the easy part it’s fish that everyone wants.

The area was jammed with people and their shopping carts. We don’t take a shopping cart as it could only add to our struggle as we try desperately to check out the prawns and oysters. We saw a guy struggling with a large cart and an eskay on the top level. Today wasn’t hot enough for it to be useful.

I often wonder if the fish stall at the beginning of the Food Court is the best. We have never been able to see it. The buyers are about 10 deep and trying to wriggle through and see the merchandise is impossible. I am only there on Christmas Eve but I must go some other time to check-out this stall. My belief is the crowd gathers because it’s the first one they come to.

The fish purchased, we moved to the Delicatessen area where the crowd is thinner but increases where the bread is. We have bought some disasters here in the past and I think it is an expensive place to shop. This year we bought a Danish Blue cheese to add to the ones we already have.

The whole place abounds in good cheer. People smile, laugh, chat, remark on the size of the crowd and wish strangers Merry Christmas. They allow themselves to be served in the order they arrive rather than push ahead. The spirit of Christmas is alive and well here. But this is early; people are surging in as we leave. The atmosphere could get less tolerant and festive later in the day. We vow to be even earlier next year so we can get a really good look before we buy.

We were too early for the Spanish donuts. We ate them last year. We bought a wire brush for the barbecue and were home for N to go to work and me to get myself to the gym where my favourite instructor ( see my blog dated October 3rd) took the pump class.

He began by saying, “Gee it’s a long time since I did one of these but I know how it goes”, and grinned cheerfully at us as he cranked up the music.

I noticed the time table doesn’t have him down for another one so he’s not keen to come back to it.