Chapter (2) A CHRISTMAS MORNING

               A Christmas Morning

        

 

Santa Clause had been very generous to us kids that year and to make it perfect we had woken up to a snowy cold Christmas morning. I think I was about 5 years old. In those early years it seemed to me that we had a white Christmas every year. Winters were always cold and snow fell from November to February. We built snowmen and slides and played on homemade sledges. The snow would disappear in the early spring when the rains began. My brother Gary and I would be outside building a Snowman as soon as we had a couple of inches of snow covering the gardens. First thing to do was to roll as big a ball of snow as we could move. This would be the main body of our snowman. Unfortunately there wasn't usually enough snow on the lawns and so we would venture out of the garden and start the ball somewhere down the path by the side of our house. If we were lucky we would be the first ones out there and get the best of the new snow. It was important to roll it before the snow became too cold and crunchy, as it wouldn't stick together if it started to get ice grains in it. Eventually we placed the ball onto the front lawn and then went off to get a smaller one for the head. If our mum wasn't too busy she would come and give us a hand to lift the head up on top. Dad was always away at work. We didn't have the luxury of having a pair of gloves for our hands and so we used a pair of old socks to protect our hands from the freezing snow. Once the head was in place we filled in the joints with loose snow and carved arms , we used an old short-legged stool to stand on to make the face. Two bits of coal from the coalbunker made the eyes, one of us would get a carrot from the vegetable clamp to make his nose. We often used a small curved twig for his mouth. We used the metal lid from the dustbin as a hat for the top of his head and an old scarf around his neck finished our snowman. By mid afternoon most of the gardens in our street had a snowman to welcome any visitors. I don't remember any rivalry or competitiveness it was just something that we all did. Of course that didn't stop us from trying to keep our snowman standing longer than the others. Repairs were made often.

I mentioned that we didn't have a pair of gloves, in fact we did, we just weren't allowed to play in them. You see my mum, like lots of other mothers, was an avid knitter and we all had a pair of knitted gloves, however these were normally only used for best, they were to be worn on Sundays or if we ever went to the local town. Mum would go mad if she caught us using them to play outside. Looking back now it seems strange but we were so proud to show off our hand knitted gloves. My mother knew all about recycling even though she'd never heard of it. She made use of anything that could still be used and we often had to pull the wool apart from old jumpers and cardigans. Our gloves were bright and often had each finger a different colour. Today it might be seen by some as a sign of our poverty but when we had brightly coloured, warm gloves and a lot of our friends had no gloves at all, I can tell you we were so proud that our mum could make these ill fitting hand warmers with most of the fingers the same length. None of that mattered when we walked to Sunday school on a cold frosty winter's morning and we had warm fingers.

 It was seeing an old black and white photo that took me back to a particular Christmas morning. In the picture I am standing in our snow-covered garden. I am proudly wearing my new Cisco Kid cowboy outfit that Santa Claus had given me. Complete with black cowboy hat with white trims I'm sporting a cowboy waistcoat, chaps with tassels and a pair of holsters with silver cap pistols. I don't think I took it off at all that day. My younger brother Gary also received a hat and a single gun and holster, he was only 3 after all. By lunchtime my brother and I had used up all the rolls of caps that came with the pistols, this was probably a blessing for our parents.

It was early morning when my father asked me to help him. He took me out into the garden to pick Brussels sprouts for our Christmas dinner. The sky was dull and grey and the air was so cold that each time I took a breath it looked like I was smoking a cigarette.  My father used an old box brownie with its 120, Phillips black and white, roll film to take the pictures. When the roll was filled my father would sometimes use the company's darkroom after work to develop his photographs, later he started developing them at home in the bathroom sink, my mum wasn't impressed with the smells from the chemicals.

It was the day my father told me that Brussels sprouts were no good until they'd had a good frost on them to tighten them up. I never forgot it. As my dad led the way down the garden path I followed him carrying mum's old metal colander to put them in. Near the bottom of our garden path dad stepped out onto the hard ground and bent over to shake several Brussels plants to get the snow and ice off. He took out his old pocketknife and cut the small green tops off half a dozen plants and passed them to me one at a time. They were dark green, crisp and cold. When I'd placed them all in the colander he told me to take them back to mum and then bring the colander back empty. We used to call these tops Spring Greens. I said “giddy up” to my imaginary horse and galloped back up the garden path reaching the kitchen door in no time. With both my hands occupied I kicked the bottom of the door with my wellied foot. Mum opened it and took the colander and emptied the greens into the sink then passed the colander back to me.

“Tell your dad to get the small ones.” Was all she said.

 I galloped back to my dad, my horse nearly slipped over a couple of times on the icy path, he needed new wellies. I gave dad the colander and told him what mum had said. Dad just gave a tiny smile and started to pick the sprouts. It didn't take very long for him to fill the colander. He would lift the large drooping leaves to reveal the sprouts, then with his thumb he pressed down on each tight little sprout until it cracked off the main stem. Luckily the colander had two handles and as it was filled it was as much as I could carry. I walked back, I was afraid if made my horse gallop I might spill some.

Although as a family we had little in the way luxury items and we lived frugally for most of the year, my parents always went completely overboard to make sure we had a Christmas to remember. In our village we had two small general shops and a post office. The post office was tiny but they always had a selection of toys and small gifts on display. This little shop would supply most of the colouring books, crayons, painting sets, farm animals and matchbox cars delivered by Santa to the village kids. Mum always bought a couple of packs of paper chain strips as soon as they appeared in the small window of the Post office. These packs were simply a large bundle of paper strips in half a dozen different colours. Each strip was about nine inches long and an inch wide with a dab of glue on one end that you had to moisten by licking, you could then join the ends together. Each strip would form one link in a paper chain. Then the second one was made in the same way except it was passed through the first before sticking. In a short time we had produced a long chain of these paper links ready to hang across the ceilings. In the early days of December, while my father was still at work, my Mum would get out her Christmas decorations box and sit us on the mat in front of the fire and we would make long, long chains ready to decorate the house. Mum loved to decorate the house for Christmas, she used many colourful paper trimmings and balloons, lots and lots of balloons. The balloons would be tied in bunches of five or six and then pinned to the ceiling of our living room. Mum was very particular about the decorations and directed my dad on where and how to pin them up. We all looked forward to taking down the balloons in the New Year and laying them on the floor. Then we would stand and wait for our father to say 'GO', and we would jump up and down on them until we'd burst them all. The laughter would ring around and around the house.

The tree, always a real Christmas tree, was decorated with ancient glass baubles, tinsels and special chocolate treats, always a precise number, so that after Christmas when the chocolate bells, balls, Santas and Snowmen were divided up, each child would receive an equal share. The Christmas tree lights were old and had larger bulbs than is normal today. There would always be one or two that didn't work and my father would spend ages testing each of the forty bulbs until he found the ones that didn't light up. When he'd fixed them we would all gather in the living room to watch the lights being switched on. It is a feeling of joy that stays with you a lifetime.

Christmas morning usually started as soon as one of us woke up. We were allowed to open the gifts in our stockings which had been magically filled and then left at the foot of our beds by Santa Claus. If we woke up after 5am we were allowed to carry on. Even if it was earlier my brother and I, we shared a bed, would sneak our stockings under the covers and start to open our gifts. In the top of the stocking we would usually find a small torch so that we could carry on opening presents under the covers without disturbing the rest of the family.  Our mum knew we wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to open the presents and I realise now that she had thought it through in detail to make the experience a better one for us. Once we'd made our little tent under the covers and armed with a light source my brother and I revelled in opening the rest of the gifts inside our stockings.  Amongst other things we usually found a set of colouring pencils and a colouring book, sweets, a small card game or similar small toy. We knew that there would be a matchbox car and a couple of farm or zoo animals for our collections. There was always a tangerine and a few nuts in the bottom. Sometimes we would find a couple of Brussels sprouts wrapped in gaily decorated Christmas paper, my dad's little joke, he knew we didn't really like them. The real prize in the stocking was a small bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate, just 5 small rectangles of creamy delicious chocolate wrapped in the distinctive blue paper. It was normally the only time that we children received such a treat. When my own children were growing up I did my best to carry on with this tradition. Every year my children would find a stocking at the bottom of their beds filled with an assortment of small gifts, nuts and a tangerine. Even now I give wrapped Brussels sprouts to my kids and I enjoy seeing their faces, they know what the tiny packets are but they still go through the motions of being surprised just to please me. I love my kids.

Once we had opened everything in the stockings we knew that downstairs there would be a pillowcase for each of us filled with our main presents and a few gifts from Aunts and Uncles too. As soon as my mother heard us she would get up and start on the day's festivities. By the time she shouted for us to get up mum had already lit the fire in the living room, dressed the kitchen table with a white cloth and made boiled eggs.  There would be a plate of home cured and cooked ham sliced thinly, a pile of bread, cut corner to corner, spread with real butter, and various little pots of pickles. It was our family tradition to have an early breakfast before gathering around the fire in the living room, and opening the rest of our gifts. My sister recently found some photos of us as children with our Christmas gifts. I was amazed when I saw them, to see the floors covered with gifts of every type and to realise that we really were spoilt, and that our parents had spent so much time, effort and money to make our Christmases such special times for us. As she reminded me, Santa always brought us a pair of slippers so that our feet would be warm while we opened our main gifts. The open coal fire took time to warm the living room and we didn't have central heating in those days.  That Santa Claus, he would think of everything to make the day special for us.

 My mother spent the whole day on Christmas Eve preparing food for the feast and baking delicious fairy cakes with butter cream fillings. A family favourite was the homemade pork pie she made once a year just for the Christmas tea. When the handmade mince pies and biscuits were cool enough we would gather around the old wooden table in the middle of the kitchen and mum would give each of us a wax paper tube of coloured icing for us to decorate them. Tiny tubes of gold and silver coloured balls would come out of the cupboard and mum would give each of us a few to add sparkle to our creations.

My father was usually out somewhere, he never hid the fact he didn't like being in the kitchen when my mum was cooking. Despite all the work and the playing Christmas Eve could not pass quickly enough for us children. Sometimes a small group of children would arrive to sing a Christmas carol and we would give them some of the cakes and biscuits we'd been making. Before going to bed we would hang stockings over the fireplace. A plate of mince pies and carrots was prepared and left on a small table for Santa and his reindeer. My father would pour a small glass of sherry and place it alongside the food. He said that Santa might need a little drink to warm him up. When we came downstairs in the morning the food was always eaten leaving only crumbs. The glass was empty too, I suspect my mum helped with that part. The other reason we loved Christmas was that Boxing Day was my little brother's birthday, but more than that it was my mum's birthday too. My brother Nick really looked forward to Christmas because as he used to say he gets two lots of presents. For my mother the Christmas period was a very tiring time. We didn't appreciate just how long and hard she worked to give us all such a wonderful time. I recently found some old photos at my father's house and amongst them were a few showing myself and my brother with our presents. It made me realise that our parents had done so much more than we had ever imagined to give us Christmases to remember.

Over the two Christmas days various Aunts, Uncles and other assorted relatives and family friends would arrive, kiss every one, eat large amounts of sandwiches, drink many glasses of cheap sherry and occasionally leave a gift before going on to the next house. Mum revelled in the praises they gave her for the decorations and the food she'd made. Dad would often just grunt and then disappear down the garden shed with one of my uncles with an excuse that

 he had to check on something or other. We children had to be enthusiastic yet play quietly on the floor trying to impress these interlopers with our good manners.

Christmas lunch was the most important meal of the entire year. The kitchen table was carried into the front room and we dressed it with a brightly decorated Christmas tablecloth. Then mums best china plates and dishes were taken out of the cupboard for their annual outing. The table groaned under the heavy bowls of vegetables and potatoes and accompaniments. When it was time we all took our places and waited for my mother to bring in the roast, which arrived on a huge willow pattern meat dish surrounded by roasted potatoes and baked stuffing balls. In the early years it might be a huge chicken, a large beef joint or roast leg of pork, but later it was usually a turkey or occasionally a goose. My father carved the meat with great pride. After the main course mum would disappear into the kitchen and reappear minutes later with her famous steamed Christmas pudding and a bowl of creamy white Rum flavoured custard. As each generous portion was placed in a bowl Mum would make sure that each of us would find a silver shilling hidden inside it.

With Christmas lunch finally over everyone helped to clear the table and take all the pots into the kitchen where my mother would spend the next hour washing up and putting away. We children usually sat around with a new book and let the food digest a little.

When the evening finally came we would all gather in the living room and sit around the fire while mum roasted chestnuts on a flat iron in the hot ashes. My father sat in his favourite armchair while a dim bulb struggled to throw light through the coloured cloth shade. The flames from the burning coals flickered in the hearth illuminating the little peg rug and my dad's trouser legs. It was Christmas night and my dad was happy. He was relaxed, he had a bar of chocolate and a bowl of nuts on his knees and a glass of port sat on a small table by his side. Our television with its large wooden case and tiny screen hummed away in the corner of the room, nobody was watching. My mother relaxed and allowed my father to smoke a single small cigar, it was Christmas after all.

When I had my own children I tried so hard to recreate Christmases like the ones I enjoyed as a child. The world had changed, it had become highly commercial, almost every aspect of the Christmases I knew, had been changed. Despite the differences in the houses, in the decorations and smells and in the children's expectations, somehow my wife and I managed to create the magic and mystery of Christmas past. I hope my children will be able to recreate the magic with their children when their time comes.