Christmas Past

As I get older I cannot but help recall Christmas as it was when I was young.  Things were so different then.

Christmas did not start in September as it seems to these days.  Yes, we really do have shops selling cards and decorations as early as that.

When I was a child, people did not really start preparing for Christmas until a week beforehand.  Only the Christmas pudding and the cake had been organised.  My Nan used to make all our Christmas puddings and our cake because she was such a wonderful cook.  I can still recall our steamy kitchen as the pudding was boiling in the pot and the tiny silver sixpenny coins that were lovingly placed in the puddings.  You could break a tooth on one of those, but each of us hoped we would get a slice of pudding with a coin in it.

The big London stores in Oxford Street would put their decorations up during December and we often went to see the switching on of the lights in Oxford Street, a great treat.  We would meet my Father at his place of work and then go to see the wonder of the lights and then have a meal together before taking the train ride home.

Refrigerators in those days were only for the rich, us ordinary folk did not have one.  In fact, we never had a t.v. set in the house until I was fifteen.  So, no fridge meant that you could only do your food shopping in the couple of days before Christmas.  Cheese could be kept in a cheese dish or in the larder which was always cold because it had a metal grill to the outside to let in the cold air.  Fruit and Vegetables were bought usually on Christmas Eve and so was the bird.  At first, it was always a Chicken but we later progressed to a Turkey. Dad would leave work a little earlier than usual and make his way to Smithfield meat market where he could be sure of getting a nice fresh bird and probably a good deal on it as well.  He would also bring home the Holly and the Mistletoe.

The week leading up to Christmas, I would be busy making endless paper chains which Dad strung all around our hall, our living room and our dining room.  How cheap they seem now, people would not dream of having them today with all the beautiful and glitzy decorations available, but to me, they were Christmas.  As soon as I sat down to make them I knew that Christmas was here again.

We always had a small tree.  A real one and, once again, Dad did the honours bringing one home about three days before Christmas.  Mum and I would decorate it with baubles that she bought when she had first married.  Each one was kept carefully protected in tissue paper and treated like a treasure.  Those decorations lasted so long that I even used a few remaining ones during the early days of my marriage but they are long gone now.

I remember the tree lights.  They were bought from Woolworths and were glass globes.  They were Santa heads and snowman heads and they came out year after year along with the fairy for the top of the tree, who had seen better days even when I was a child.  Of course, there was nothing you could spray on trees in those days to stop needle drop so long before New Year, we were left with bare branches with the ornaments hanging on them!

It was a busy time.  One of my jobs was to go to the local Ironmongers shop to buy in extra bundles of wood for the fire.  I remember them so clearly.  Like little log rolls, there were quite a few pieces of wood held around with a piece of wire.  I used to love the Ironmongers shop with its smell of paraffin and candle wax.  Likewise the butchers that had wonderful marble tiles around the walls and sawdust on the floor.  I hated to see the dead birds hanging up there and the rabbits but you got used to it.

Christmas was the only time of the year when we had a real box of biscuits.  Other than that, I used to go to the Corn Chandlers and get a pound of broken biscuits per week.  The broken ones were cheaper.  Times were much harder in those days.

Apart from paper chains, Dad spent lots of time blowing up balloons, half of which deflated over Christmas but we did not seem to mind.

The air of excitement grew by the day.  The winters were colder than as well and we often got snow which added to the sheer joy of it all.

Mum would spend Christmas Eve making the mince pies and preparing the vegetables.

Came the great day.  I always awoke in the early hours to find presents at the end of my bed and a stocking that was filled.  My stocking was one of Mum's nylons.  It would be filled with lots of little things, small plastic toys, a colouring book, crayons, a pencil case etc. etc. and always, right at the bottom, some chocolate "money" wrapped in gold paper and an orange. My main present would usually be a doll or some other toy and always a book because I have always been a bookworm.

I think I always upset Mum and Dad.  They would have liked me to open my presents in front of them but I saw no reason to.  Why should I wait? After all, my presents had been left by Santa and were nothing to do with Mum and Dad.  I assumed Santa had left them presents of their own, so before it was fully light mine had all been opened and played with.

I remember the year when I found out there was no Santa Claus and how badly that hit me, but that is another story, likewise the present my Dad gave me that badly misfired.

So Christmas morning we would listen to the Carols on the radio and show off our presents and then we would sit down to a hearty dinner with all the trimmings.

For the rest of the day we would play games, maybe hide and seek, Tiddlywinks or Snakes and Ladders.  Sometimes charades.  Then the evening would be quiet. We would listen to the radio or maybe go for a walk. I would be playing with whatever I had been given and was tired out long before bed time.

People really made their own entertainment then and there seemed to be so much joy and goodwill about probably because the war was still very fresh and people could now celebrate in peace and without fear.

It is all so different today.  Children seem to get everything, designer clothes, expensive electronic gadgets, even their own computers, t.v.'s and C.D. players.  People spend far more than they can afford whereas we always kept to a strict budget.  Decorations are much more elaborate and I confess that we now have fancy lights and I try to buy something new each year.

So, as I write this, our decorations and lights are all up, the Christmas cards all sent, the presents are all bought.  All I have to do now is wrap them.  So different from how it used to be years ago.

I enjoy Christmas, I always have, but I have never recaptured the joy of those Christmases long ago.  Maybe it is just because I was a child then but I do not think so.  Christmas now starts so early that the excitement has gone from it all.  By the time the day comes, lots of people are already sick of it and all the hype there is these days.

Memories, however, linger.  Nothing can spoil or mar the memory of those far off Christmases when life was simpler, people seemed friendlier, life was not so full of fear and tension, hurry and frustration.  I wish our little Grandson could know a Christmas like I did, a Christmas that actually came in Christmas week, when pleasures were simple but joy was unbounded.