news, local-news, Joanne McCarthy, Royal Commission, Christmas, Christmas lights
THERE’s a new store in my local shopping centre – between a hairdresser and a bakery, and across the way from a sushi bar. While I was standing in it the other day, talking to the owner, a woman took one look at a lamp stand with fake snow on it, said “I’ve got to have it”, and a $599 sale was done before you could say “A Christmas store? Already? What month is this?” It might have been 107 days until Christmas, but people were in the mood for giant polar bears (a cool $1595), glass LED Santas ($299.95), standard penguins ($349), snazzy glass LED penguins in white and blue (I was so bedazzled by the little critters that I forgot to note the price), light curtains ($299), a little glass LED polar bear ($199), and a “light up church” ($169.95.) Karen Seal’s Christmas store was open for business, and after five weeks of royal commission hearings into child sexual abuse, plus prosecutions and sentencings, I was in the mood for tinsel, clear Christmas candle lights with moving glitter in a suspended liquid (words don’t do it justice – you have to be there), elves on shelves, Santa Clauses of every possible description, glass LED nativity scenes and reindeer food in little packets at $2 a pop. (Who knew reindeer ate raw oats and glitter?) I’m a sucker for Christmas stores and people who drape their homes and gardens with lights. I’m hopeless at doing it myself, of course. When my sons were young we had the tree, the lights, the wreath on the door, Santa’s legs sticking out of a dresser (not a chimney in sight), cards strung across the loungeroom windows and the whole shebang. But for the past few years I’ve got as far as hauling the Christmas tree in its box from a laundry cupboard where it lives for 50 weeks of the year and gathers dust, and then the whole project has exhausted me. Each Christmas I’ve discovered artful ways to decorate the box as it’s rested on its side. “Really?” said my youngest son last year when he walked into the house to see the Christmas 2015 decoration extravaganza – the Christmas tree box on its side with a box of gold baubles sitting at one end, the baubles still in the box. “Couldn’t you at least have got the baubles out?” Karen Seal’s business started with a Christmas where she lacked the money to buy her children gifts. She used other people’s discarded Christmas trees to make wreaths for people’s doors, decorated them, sold them at a market, saw potential in tinsel, glitter, fur and lights, and a business was born. “I’m so grateful for how I’ve got here,” she said. During the 20 minutes or so of my visit children wandered around, and pointed to the sitting, standing, lounging, laughing, moving, sleeping and jumping Santas. The woman who had to have the fake snow-topped lamp stand said it reminded her of her childhood, presumably a long way from Australia. A couple walked in pushing a little girl in a shopping trolley. The woman and the child headed off into fairyland while the fellow stood guard over the groceries. Even he walked across to the white and blue LED penguins after awhile, to marvel at their shining penguin-ness. I’m thinking about going wild this Christmas and putting up a few lights. The thought came to me after I left the Christmas shop, and after speaking to several people who gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearings in Newcastle since August 2. The Newcastle Herald’s campaign for a royal commission was named “Shine the Light”. As commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said in Newcastle last week, investigations into abuse within the Catholic and Anglican churches were “founded upon the suffering of a great many people”. It needed the media to expose that suffering to the wider community because “without those efforts it is unlikely that this royal commission would have taken place”. “It is unlikely that government would have believed it necessary to respond in the way that ultimately occurred,” Justice McClellan said. The Federal Government does not support the royal commission’s most significant recommendation to date – that the Commonwealth administer a national redress scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse in institutions. Although a large proportion of the national scheme’s funding is proposed to come from the institutions where the abuse occurred – churches and other institutions – and the majority of those institutions have made it clear they accept their responsibilities to fund the scheme, and want the Commonwealth to administer it, it is now one year since the royal commission recommended it, and the need for urgent action. And the federal government has baulked. It wants the states to handle it, which would leave some of the most vulnerable people in the community at the whim of some states that have made clear they don’t want the responsibility. In 2012, during the campaign for a royal commission, politicians were the very last to come to the party, just as they don’t see the need for a banking royal commission which has broad community support. The one notable exception was NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, who has not received anywhere near enough recognition for the vital role he played. I’m an optimist. People power achieved a royal commission. Let’s shine the light again to support adults whose childhoods were darkened by abuse.
THERE’s a new store in my local shopping centre – between a hairdresser and a bakery, and across the way from a sushi bar.
While I was standing in it the other day, talking to the owner, a woman took one look at a lamp stand with fake snow on it, said “I’ve got to have it”, and a $599 sale was done before you could say “A Christmas store? Already? What month is this?”
It might have been 107 days until Christmas, but people were in the mood for giant polar bears (a cool $1595), glass LED Santas ($299.95), standard penguins ($349), snazzy glass LED penguins in white and blue (I was so bedazzled by the little critters that I forgot to note the price), light curtains ($299), a little glass LED polar bear ($199), and a “light up church” ($169.95.)
Karen Seal’s Christmas store was open for business, and after five weeks of royal commission hearings into child sexual abuse, plus prosecutions and sentencings, I was in the mood for tinsel, clear Christmas candle lights with moving glitter in a suspended liquid (words don’t do it justice – you have to be there), elves on shelves, Santa Clauses of every possible description, glass LED nativity scenes and reindeer food in little packets at $2 a pop. (Who knew reindeer ate raw oats and glitter?)
I’m a sucker for Christmas stores and people who drape their homes and gardens with lights. I’m hopeless at doing it myself, of course.
When my sons were young we had the tree, the lights, the wreath on the door, Santa’s legs sticking out of a dresser (not a chimney in sight), cards strung across the loungeroom windows and the whole shebang.
But for the past few years I’ve got as far as hauling the Christmas tree in its box from a laundry cupboard where it lives for 50 weeks of the year and gathers dust, and then the whole project has exhausted me. Each Christmas I’ve discovered artful ways to decorate the box as it’s rested on its side.
“Really?” said my youngest son last year when he walked into the house to see the Christmas 2015 decoration extravaganza – the Christmas tree box on its side with a box of gold baubles sitting at one end, the baubles still in the box.
“Couldn’t you at least have got the baubles out?”
Karen Seal’s business started with a Christmas where she lacked the money to buy her children gifts.
She used other people’s discarded Christmas trees to make wreaths for people’s doors, decorated them, sold them at a market, saw potential in tinsel, glitter, fur and lights, and a business was born.
“I’m so grateful for how I’ve got here,” she said.
During the 20 minutes or so of my visit children wandered around, and pointed to the sitting, standing, lounging, laughing, moving, sleeping and jumping Santas. The woman who had to have the fake snow-topped lamp stand said it reminded her of her childhood, presumably a long way from Australia.
A couple walked in pushing a little girl in a shopping trolley. The woman and the child headed off into fairyland while the fellow stood guard over the groceries. Even he walked across to the white and blue LED penguins after awhile, to marvel at their shining penguin-ness.
I’m thinking about going wild this Christmas and putting up a few lights. The thought came to me after I left the Christmas shop, and after speaking to several people who gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearings in Newcastle since August 2.
I’m thinking about going wild this Christmas and putting up a few lights. The thought came to me after I left the Christmas shop, and after speaking to several people who gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearings.
The Newcastle Herald’s campaign for a royal commission was named “Shine the Light”. As commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said in Newcastle last week, investigations into abuse within the Catholic and Anglican churches were “founded upon the suffering of a great many people”. It needed the media to expose that suffering to the wider community because “without those efforts it is unlikely that this royal commission would have taken place”.
“It is unlikely that government would have believed it necessary to respond in the way that ultimately occurred,” Justice McClellan said.
The Federal Government does not support the royal commission’s most significant recommendation to date – that the Commonwealth administer a national redress scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse in institutions.
Although a large proportion of the national scheme’s funding is proposed to come from the institutions where the abuse occurred – churches and other institutions – and the majority of those institutions have made it clear they accept their responsibilities to fund the scheme, and want the Commonwealth to administer it, it is now one year since the royal commission recommended it, and the need for urgent action.
And the federal government has baulked. It wants the states to handle it, which would leave some of the most vulnerable people in the community at the whim of some states that have made clear they don’t want the responsibility.
In 2012, during the campaign for a royal commission, politicians were the very last to come to the party, just as they don’t see the need for a banking royal commission which has broad community support.
The one notable exception was NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, who has not received anywhere near enough recognition for the vital role he played.
I’m an optimist. People power achieved a royal commission. Let’s shine the light again to support adults whose childhoods were darkened by abuse.
