Christmas is here now — and almost everywhere around the world. But how have your own celebrations changed over the years? How has your role changed and has your attitude towards Christmas changed? Are you more religious or spiritual now than you were 20 years ago? Why has this particular religious festival gone viral? Why do various non-Christian nations celebrate Christmas with a public holiday? How does Christmas vary in different countries?

Above all, what does Christmas here and now mean to you? I asked random people this question on Cuba Street, Wellington, and they were mostly in agreement — but with some surprises. And of course I have my own opinions.

My big sister Jill Nuthall learned skills as a child that were invaluable in her career as a social worker. To realise just how damn good you were in your long working life: write about it!

She talks about the people-skills she learned as a child, particularly leadership and team work. These big-sister skills were the foundation for what became a fascinating career as a social worker.

Why did Jill enjoy her working life so much? After marrying young, having four children, and living in a stimulating environment in Urbana Illinois, in 1966 Jill became an at-home suburban wife back in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her husband went off to his wonderful job every day and Jill felt stifled and was longing to have her own career. To get a qualification, use her talents, be with grown-ups again. (By the way, that certainly didn't stop her from being a terrific mother and homemaker.) When her youngest started school, she was delighted to be able to start on a long working life.

It was by writing a memoir that Jill calls "A Joyful Working Life" that Jill spotted certain themes that ran through her life. At the time, her career seemed like a patchwork, a crazy quilt. But in retrospect, it had a definite shape.

She recommends that others do the same thing. If you look back and write about your working life, this can help you to understand what skills you have accumulated and to appreciate what you have achieved. It gives your family a record of your working life and can help you to make sense of all those years at work. Win-win!

The episode ends with me reading "A poem for my big sister Jill." I still find it hard to read this one without choking up, and this time I almost made it.

Thanks for listening! And if you like my podcast, please tell a friend

What springs to mind when you think about love in later life? In this episode, Rhonda Pritchard delivers some salutary truths about love, roles, sex, intimacy, and (especially) commitment as they apply to older people. Rhonda is a Wellington psychologist and counsellor, rather famous for her clear-eyed best seller, Love in the Real World.  Her ideas are based on 40 years' experience as a marriage counsellor, and on her personal experience as a 77-year-old in a long-lasting second marriage. Some of her words may seem blunt — even grim — in a culture that's soaked in red roses and myths of "love is all you need." And yet, In the real world, when you think about relationships in old age, they're just plain common sense.

This delightful conversation dances around a serious topic. Expect the odd personal revelation and even a rare Dad joke from host Rachel. Older couples who have worked things out for themselves will feel validated — and others will pick up some very useful advice. Rhonda gives Rachel five tips to use in the highly unlikely event that she ever falls in love and contemplates a new long-term relationship.

A lively, reassuring chat about how to keep your balance — in body and in life

Physiotherapist Vicki Thirkell and I talk about vertigo, dizziness, and that mysterious loss of balance that creeps up as we age. Vicki explains how our inner ear, vision, hearing, pain, and excessive caution all play a part—and how the brain can be retrained to keep us steady. The message? Don’t freeze up: challenge your balance. Wobbling means you’re improving. “Check your balance” applies to more than walking straight: it’s also about how we age, adapt, and stay ourselves.

When I got an attack of vertigo, It was Vicki who helped me. Then she tackled another of my problems: feeling unsteady on my feet.

Her key message is hopeful and practical: balance can always be improved, at any age, as long as we “do our homework”. That means strengthening our muscles, retraining our brain, and safely challenging our equilibrium—because standing still is no recipe for stability.

“Check your balance” is a phrase that resonates well beyond the physical. Balance involves adjusting, and realigning, in body and in life. Getting the wobbles isn’t failure—it’s a starting point for growth.

Science, exercise, and humour will help us to keep moving confidently through later life.

Do you have problems with your balance? What does that feel like? And how does it affect your life?

In this episode of How To Be Old, I chat with Jo Randerson, playwright, actor, director, and author of Secret Art Powers: How Creative Thinking Can Achieve Radical Change. Through Jo's eyes, we see aging as a continuing creative practice: a chance to notice, laugh, reframe, and stay astonished by the world.

Her five secret art powers are all extremely useful as you get older. Jo says, “The creative approach is to accept the reality that we are in and to find a way to work alongside it that is fun, clear, truthful, frame-changing. [...] How do I make the best of where I am right now?”

Jo raises some crucial questions. As we age, do we get physically and emotionally softer or harder — or both? Feeling invisible because of our age can hurt, but can we make the most of its new  opportunities? Why do we focus on the negative? Why do we need the binary concepts of “old” and “young” when there are so many shades in between? Do the phrases “aging successfully” and “creative aging” make some people feel like failures? And how should I respond to feedback from my children when I start spilling food down my front?

Sometimes I feel like I can do a stealth attack. Because people have already written you off in a way and they go, "There's that older grey lady” — of which I am one — and then people are like "Holy heck, what did you see what that old white lady in the corner did?" Hopefully not something very embarrassing. (Jo Randerson)

Community arts case study: Sing it to My Face

Barbarian. More about Jo Randerson's work

In this beautifully reflective episode, Rachel McAlpine chats with her distinguished guest Lois Daish on food, aging, and how our relationship with food changes as we grow older. Lois Daish is a legendary New Zealand food writer, cook, and culinary guide. From the humble breakfasts of the 1940s to today’s one-pot pasta hacks, this conversation blends memory, practicality, and a deep respect for the rhythms of the body in later life.

Together, Rachel and Lois explore:

Plus slimy porridge, an ode to lettuce, a philosophical giggle about farting, and “Jack Sprat” reinterpreted for modern food trends. That's just a taste of Lois Daish on food!

If you liked this episode:

Links:

When we are old, alarming messages about sleep bombard us. My guest Associate Professor Rosie Gibson from Massey University and her colleague Mary Breheny found that "good" sleep in old age is often reported as a magic cure — and "bad" sleep as a terrible risk. In three "Words on Sleep" workshops, 40 people over 75 wrote poems about sleeping that suggest a more pragmatic and positive view of sleeping. Rosie and I toss around ideas and poems and stories. Listen as an antidote to sleep worries, if you have them.

Have you had a memento mori, a reminder of death, an OMG-I'm-gonna-die-one-day moment? Or perhaps a memento senesci, and OMG-I'm-gonna-be-old-one-day moment? This can happen at any age, and is just as authentic when a very young person feels it. Sometimes it prompts us to change or die.

This podcast episode is a chat with Simon Sweetman, a writer, music afficionado and podcaster who knows far too much about popular music. He talks about waking up to his own mortality, making big changes in his life to prevent an early death, and some favourite songs that are (sort of) about old age.

Simon Sweetman got a brutal wake-up call around the age of 40. After that turning point he began making a few big changes in his life, one at a time. He tells us what changed after a nurse spoke to him bluntly at a crossroads in his life.

Simon and I also talk about changes in our thinking and our approach to life, changes that happen almost inevitably in the process of growing older.

In this podcast episode, Kate Camp and I go nitpicking, grumbling and enthusing on the general topic of old people reading books and old people in books. Listen if you might be old one day. Because everything changes as you get older, including your reading habits.

My guest Kate Camp is a terrific poet and in New Zealand she’s well known and very popular because of a radio programme, Kate’s Klassics. Every month she used to re-read a classic book, like Anne of Green Gables or Pride and Prejudice or The Odyssey, and on Radio NZ she would do a wickedly funny commentary on that book.

That's why I’ve asked Kate here to talk about reading. How reading may change as we get older. What we read, how we read, why we read, why we don’t read — and books that feature old people as protagonists. That sounds quite organised, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. We wander all over the place, but always with a special interest in old people reading. Listen up for Kate's origin myth of how she learned to read. We react in personal ways to Read NZ's 2025 National Reading Survey. We cast about for very old protagonists in novels, and skip lightly over the current wave of book series set in retirement villages. We rave about a TV series and a couple of books that feature characters confronting their own old age.

Kate is wonderfully blunt at times. For instance, "In DIckens there's a lot of old people but they're all decrepit old wrecks." "Subconsciously people think if you're reading a book it's more worthy than watching TV."

Thanks for listening — catch you later! And if you like this podcast, please tell a friend.

Learning How To Be Old returns to the air with a timely check-up. I want to be sure that I'm fit to podcast. Hugo, aged 13, tests me for my overdue Old Person Warrant of Fitness. Looking pretty good, though some criteria are dubious. I just need an oil and grease and a few tweaks to allow for some common age-related changes.

In coming episodes, my terrific guests bring a breath of fresh air as we chat about issues in daily life. Obviously, your body and mind keep changing from the day you're born, and it never stops. As a result, so does your social life, your mental life, the pressures you feel, your habits and your choices.

Exploring so many topics related to old age takes mental and physical agility. Last week disaster struck when I accidentally wiped out a conversation with a brilliant, busy guest. That was a big fail, and all my own doing. I felt so ashamed. I hope I've learned a necessary lesson about focus and thumbs.

For an hour or two, I doubted myself. Am I really fit to podcast? Next year's test will be more rigorous. Meantime, enjoy listening to my guest Hugo as he puts me through my paces.

From now on, Learning How To Be Old will be broadcast from Wellington Access Radio at 6:30 pm, alternate Tuesdays. Also here on my website and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. as usual.

Thanks for listening! And please share with somebody you know.