NOTES ON
1961 - Christmas
http://comp.uark.edu/~dsears/photos/Eileen61christmas/
Christmas
was always a very special day.
All-consuming in its excitement.
A week before, the house was transformed by paper decorations, paper chains
across the ceilings, balloons, paper snowmen, bells and other brightly coloured
decorations attached to the walls. On
Christmas day we awoke to find large paper stockings on our beds, stuffed with
gifts; toys, fruit, nuts, sweets. And
when we were called downstairs there were large paper “pillow cases” similarly
stuffed with presents. Mum would
struggle to get us through the meals, a huge breakfast, an even bigger dinner,
usually rushed to end before the Queen’s Christmas speech at 3:00 pm, and a
supper of salad and cakes put out long before our stomachs were ready. And after the supper, fruits and sweets were
put out, and large bowls of nuts with nut crackers lying conveniently in the middle. On the day after Christmas, Boxing Day,
there would be more presents on the tree, which we would remove through a
carefully orchestrated procedure of matching numbers. We were still following this tradition when I got married, and
Mum would contrive for Hazel and me to draw numbers corresponding baby presents;
a less than subtle hint that she was ready for grandchildren.
To
make our Christmas unique, it was also my father’s birthday, which meant
additional ceremonies. Mum would insist
that Dad’s birthday presents not be mingled with his Christmas presents and
they were to be distinguished by being wrapped in brown paper. Dad was a slow meticulous unwrapper of
presents, carefully preserving even the smallest piece of wrapping paper. His Christmas gifts would take longer to
open that anyone else’s, and Mum had ensured that Dad had twice as many
presents as anyone else. Sometimes we
would get bored and leave him to it, eager to get to our own gifts. As soon as gift wrapping was over, and Mum
had set herself up in the kitchen, Dad’s brother, Uncle Lewis, would arrive and
take him to the pub for a birthday drink.
They would sometimes return drunk, and sometimes late, and Mum would get
upset.
In
1961 we shared Christmas with Aunty Win and her family, and granddad, and by
now we had acquired colour film.