There were no Christmas railways for us, I fear, although we sometimes saw engines chugging along the lining running behind the Vickers-Armstrong works across the Scotswood Road during the holidays, just as they did year round. But as with most families, our Christmas Day had its own order, a traditional progression of events unwinding from our first forays into lumpy Christmas stockings at the foot of our bunk bed in the grey light before dawn to getting up to the steamy, fruity smell of the Christmas pudding boiling merrily in the kitchen to the last goodnight before the light was put out and Boxing Day crept towards us on the twirling sails of the windmill clock hanging on our attic bedroom wall.
As a child, early Christmas evening was my favourite time of the day. By then we had presented our gifts -- usually home-made calendars liberally sprinkled with glitter after secret assembly up in the attic or perhaps boxes of matching handkerchiefs, or a diary, or a huge bottle of lavender perfume from the local Woolworths, things small in themselves but for which we had saved our pocket money for some time, sacrificing even that extra tube of fruit gums in order to get a few pennies more towards the cost of the fancier wrapping paper. And of course we had ourselves long since unwrapped our own new treasures -- always a book, usually a selection box containing six or eight different sorts of chocolate bars, and two or three other small parcels that had been stuffed into our Christmas stockings (being a pair of my father's much darned wool socks) along with the customary silver foil wrapped tangerine plus a handful of walnuts in the shell and a few toffees tucked into their toes.
After the Queen's speech broadcast at 3 pm and having toasted her health with a glass of sherry or a cup of tea as appropriate to age, about an hour later it was time to sit down for our tea. We kids would gleefully pull red and green Christmas crackers, reading their mottoes and silly jokes aloud for everyone's delight. We'd put on the silly hats and divvy up the geegaw trinkets from the crackers and then pass around slices of the rich, solid dark cake my mother had made weeks before. The British Christmas cake is basically all sorts of dried fruit held together with spices, eggs, flour, butter and a dash of something that in our day might have been rum though we never dared ask, the whole being covered in marzipan and tooth-cracking Royal icing on which, at our house at least, was displayed a small, much battered miniature sled that so far as we could tell was made of painted chalk.
There would be hot mince pies (muffin sized in England) and perhaps a sandwich, all downed with big china cups of strong, black, heavily sugared tea. Afterwards we'd linger at the kitchen table to demolish some of the aforementioned nuts and citrus fruit as well as passing around a once a year purchase -- a frilly-edged box of sticky, dark dates that came with a little plastic fork for fishing out its contents and brought forth stern maternal warnings to mind out for the stones or we would break our teeth. The 1944 film This Happy Breed, which tells the story of a set of working class neighbours over a span of twenty years, has an essentially similar scene (much to my delight the first time I saw it) although under blackout wartime conditions and presumably without dates or tangerines, which would have cost a fortune even if any could have been found on sale.
But when the washing-up was done, the tea towel hung up to dry in the scullery and a fresh scuttle of coal brought up from the back yard, then came the best part of all. As darkness pressed against steamed-up windows behind cosily drawn curtains and adults listened to the radio while consuming yet more cups of tea, we kids lay on the hearth rug in front of the popping, glowing fire, eating chocolate and reading our new books. Could childhood memories be any better?
It all sounds very simple and ordinary and somewhat quaint, I suppose, but it was our Christmas and so remains close to our hearts -- and especially now that we are all scattered to the winds. So wherever you are and however you celebrate the many festivals falling at this time, may they give you an equal stock of happy memories -- and may the new year bring you all you wish yourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment