In 2014, Christine Anu released Christmas in Australia, an album that reimagined everything from Silent Night to Paul Kelly’s How to Make Gravy. This year, Anu is helming a different celebration of the silly season – on Tuesday 21 December at 8.30pm she will host Christmas in Australia, an ABC TV special that explores what makes our festive celebrations unique.
The show will also see Anu perform songs from that 2014 Christmas album and share stories from her own childhood, which was spent between Cairns and the Torres Strait.
Anu’s television special follows almost three-decades working across music, radio, film and TV. It was her 1995 cover of My Island Home that made Anu a national treasure, but her career actually began years before that as a dancer and back-up vocalist. It was on one of her early tours that she met Maori craftsman George Nuku, who gave Anu a necklace that she lost but never forgot.
Here, she tells us why that misplaced gift holds such significance to her, as well as the story of two other important belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
I would have to save the locks of baby hair from both my son and daughter’s first haircuts. It’s a piece of them and now that they are all grown up, those locks of hair are really the last physical connection to them as babies, which brings back many memories. They both had these beautiful gold ringlets and, of course, first haircuts are such monumental moments as a mother.
For me, the locks are something irreplaceable – more so than an item of baby clothing or a toy from that time.
My most useful object
I would have to say my “pen” for an iPad/iPhone, which has a rubber tip similar to a stylus.
I find myself constantly using it with my phone. Because it’s fine-pointed it makes anything I am doing a lot quicker as I don’t type with two hands. It’s also helpful in swiping on the surface of my phone or tablet.
I’m still old-school and write things down. I remember things easily if I visualise something and write it down, so I tend to have the pen with me at almost all times. I would be heartbroken if I lost it – it actually stays in a special part of my handbag so I can quickly access it at any moment of need.
The item I most regret losing
The item is something I think about often: a greenstone carving necklace that was given to me and carved by New Zealand artist George Nuku.
I met George through friends in Auckland in 1990 at an event coinciding with the Commonwealth Games while I was touring. We were backstage just before a performance when George presented it to me and put it around my neck. I was distraught when later that day I realised it had slipped off.
I met up with George later on during the festival. He asked how I was and when I told him I’d lost the necklace he didn’t react, just held my shoulder and said: “It means it was never meant for you.” This just broke my heart. I felt sad yet happy, and I learnt the lesson of the way we need to treasure things. Whenever my kids lose things, I repeat George’s words.
It stayed with me. I will always think of that loss because his words have become part of mine and my children’s lives, and I will always be connected to that person that gave it to me.
Christmas in Australia airs at 8.30pm on Tuesday 21 December on ABC TV
