Christmas is a funny time of
year.
As a child, I had the most
magical Christmases ever. The anticipation, the build up, the big day itself
and even the come-down afterwards was one brilliant moment as far as I was
concerned.
For a long time, I was the
youngest child in the family. I had cousins, but those I saw over Christmas
were older than me. I was eight when my brother was born and he added the
sparkle that had started to fade for me and it was magical again. When he was
ten, my cousin had her son, and again the presence of a child in the family
made it magical once again.
Our Christmases were simple, but
special. It was an event always held at my grandparents’ house. In the weeks
leading up every time we’d visit you’d see more evidence of Christmas
approaching – decorations that started off in the hallways and then into the
rarely used dining room and the even more rarely used front room, where the
tree would be on top of the bureau, the same tree and decorations as the ones
my mum and her siblings had used, delicate glass baubles in ancient cardboard
boxes.
Either the weekend before
Christmas, or on Christmas Eve, we’d go round to Nan and Grandad’s house with
the presents. Nan would put them all in the front room, and on Christmas Eve
before she went to bed she would put everyone’s presents into piles. A magical
moment for me as a kid was walking into that room first on Christmas morning
and seeing all those piles of presents. We had our special spots in the room
for our gifts to be piled, and in the middle of the room my granddad would put
two bin bags for all the rubbish.
First thing on Christmas morning,
my brother and I would open our Father Christmas presents in our mum and dads
room. Then we’d get washed and dressed in our best outfits, and head over to
Nan and Grandad’s house. Breakfast would be coffee and bacon sandwiches for the
grown ups, orange juice and bacon sandwich for us kids. My mum has two sisters
and a brother, and when I was young they’d all head to Nan and Grandad’s house
for Christmas Day. Her brother would come with his wife and their son, whose 8
years older than me; one sister would come with her husband, the other sister
with her three children. Then there’d be me, and later on my brother, plus mum
and, when he wasn’t working, dad (he normally was working though! He was a
frontline ambulance technician when I was a child)
After breakfast we’d go into the
front room. It was a magical moment for me as a child. We all went to our piles
of presents and wait til everyone was in there and ready. Then we’d start, a
frenzy of unwrapping and thank you’s and hugging and kissing until every last
present in the pile was open. Usually at that point everyone would leave in
their own cars to go to the church service at the same church where my
grandparents, parents and brother got married, which was next to elderly
residential flats where my great grandmother lived. After church we’d go and
pile into her tiny one room flat to visit with her and my great aunt, who lived
in the opposite flat.
Back at home while we’d all been
out my nan would have tidied up the front room and dinner would be ready when
we got back after visiting with my great grandmother and great aunt. Two dining
tables would be pushed together in the dining room and we’d all sit round to
eat. After dinner and tidying up we’d relax and play with our Christmas gifts. The
family grew, and the family shrank over years, but we continued with our
tradition until I was an adult.
After that, when both my nan and granddad
had passed away, the family separated out. By then I was with Daddy P, so we
divided our Christmastime between my family and his, but with no children and
no traditions it seemed to lack a certain sparkle and wasn’t as special as I
always remember it being.
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| J's 1st Christmas |
Then came the first Christmas with
J, in 2010 – he was only four months old but his presence added something that
had been missing from Christmas for some time. In 2011 we celebrated my nephew’s
first Christmas and in 2014 we celebrated my niece’s first. The presence of
children in a family definitely bring back that Christmas sparkle for me.
Seeing them enjoy the magic of it all and helping create memories for them to
treasure when they’re older; that’s what Christmas is all about for me. As J
gets older it becomes more magical – now he’s four he gets thoroughly caught up
in the magic of Father Christmas, and elves, the decorations and the sparkling
lights, the buying of gifts for others and receiving gifts himself.
It does make me wistful for
people no longer here, though. It makes me miss my grandparents even more
because Christmas was always a time I remember spending with them. I remember
the smell of the cigars my uncle used to smoke in the front room after dinner,
the way nan used to be wearing her apron over the top of her new outfit all day
long because she was in and out of the kitchen preparing a vast array of food
for every hour of the day (you always left her house feeling a dress size
larger than when you’d gone in!)
Having said that, isn’t it what
life is all about? Having wonderful memories of your own childhood to reminisce
about while creating memories for your children? There’s still so many times I
see things and think nan would like that, or granddad would, or my uncle, or my
great grandmother or my great aunt, but now there’s also things I see that make
me think J would like that, or my nephew would, or my niece would.
As these three grow up I’d love
them to enjoy a magical time every Christmas, and will be trying to make sure
they each have wonderful memories too.
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| J with my nephew A My niece R |
