On Friday we had our usual coffee group video chat which we all look forward to. It keeps us in touch with each other. We usually start off with someone saying ‘what do we know today’ to be met by ‘nothing’ before quickly finding something to talk about! This week was no exception as among other subjects we started talking about the dreaded virus, as you do. We were discussing what effect it would have on Christmas and will Santa visit this year!!
Will Santa visit this Year?
I did say that I bet a lot of families would say ‘thank goodness for that, we don’t have to invite Aunty Flo and all the other people we don’t like just to keep the peace’. I bet a lot of families have to invite people they aren’t fond of. Of course Christmas is the one time when most family rows happen.
People are all together with differences that haven’t been resolved, or whatever. I can understand that too. A certain member of my family used to cause havoc every year, but we had to keep the peace and grip our teeth. Hardly a way to spend what should be a happy time of year. Or maybe I’m wrong and all families live in peace and harmony all the time – which I think isn’t likely!
Anyway, differences aside and the debate about will Santa visit this year. We got onto the subject of Christmases in our younger days and what we did.
I used to be taken to our nearest town to watch a Christmas Parade every year when I was young by my mum and how I loved it too. It was a long procession with the streets lined with people. Families with excited children, all bouncing up and down at the sight of this wonderful man. When Santa and his sleigh got to us, I can clearly remember looking at him with this look of pure childlike rapture. He did exist after all as I had proof, I’d seen the man himself. He was a typical Father Christmas with his red face and his elves around him. And best of all, sacks full of presents to light any child’s eyes up! There was music and floats to announce his arrival before he took his place in the only department store in town.
My mum used to take me to the store to see him in all his glory, and my did I love it. Of course there was the present too which was extra special. Back in my day we only got presents when it was a birthday or Christmas as there was never any money to splash around.
Years later, I discovered that my brother had to have a present if I got one. He was five years older than me and wouldn’t go himself to see the great man. Probably because he knew the truth by then. But my mum always had to bring him something back too! That was the story of my life with him.
Money wasn’t in good supply in those days. There were no benefits and it meant you had to work hard to put food on the table, never mind all the luxuries everyone expects today. On Christmas Eve we always hung a stocking up on the mantelpiece – one of my dad’s pit socks that they wore in the mines. These were extra thick as it would often be freezing down there. So they were big, very thick and with room for one or two presents.
We always had a tangerine, an apple and some bright new shiny coins at the bottom. And a tin of Bluebird toffees, can you remember them? They were always in a pretty tin. There would be a few bits and bobs but to us they were all wonderful. The lack of anything else throughout the year made you very thankful for what you got. I always had a box of paints with loads of wonderful colours along with a colouring book. Maybe I’m regressing into my second childhood as I love colouring today, who knows.
I once had a tiny doll in a box who was dressed like an angel with wings on, and was she beautiful to me. I cherished that doll which was so tiny in its little blue box and I do believe she is in the loft somewhere. In my childhood I only ever had two dolls, that was it, and how I loved them. One was a big celluloid doll (which I still have today). She went in a shiny red pram and how I loved that pram – until one day my brother took all the wheels off to make a trolley!
I knew there was a Father Christmas because every year I would get a letter from the great man himself, all the way from Greenland. He said I had to be good and he would bring me presents, and how good I was in my determination not to be done out of my treats. There were pictures of him in his workshop and Greenland itself with all the snow and cold. It was so magical, especially when I took the letter to school to prove that he did exist.
How innocent those days were and how different to today. Still that’s life and progress for you, whether it be good or bad.
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