Christmas was always a wonderful time for me as a child, even though we were quite poor. I was born on Christmas day, so for a long time I thought I shared my birthday with Jesus. Of course there is no absolute accuracy about historical dates and all that , but anyway, Christmas as a child always felt like it was a magical time to me.
Mam used to bake a lot of mince pies and cakes with ingredients that were not too expensive. She made everything early, around about a month in advance.
At Christmas, we often used to go to church on the Christmas eve and come home to have hot mulled wine with mince pies!
Christmas day was a traditional christmas dinner with Roast Turkey and we felt close together as a family. As we were both girls, we helped mam prep the vegetables and started getting things ready for the table.
Dad did his bit and put up all the lights, the tree and the decorations, also the Christmas Nativity scene which he had made himself. This was placed nearby the christmas table with the Holy family jesus and shpherds. Dad put the Christmas Carols on the record player to create a lovely christmassy atmosphere.
Later we played Christmas carols on piano, recorders and in song all together.
When we were young, us 2 girls woke up very early to open our christmas presents under the tree. We always wrote a letter to ask father Christmas what we would like for a gift and we promised to be well behaved and help mother.
One year we received a dolly, the next year I got all 'Arty' with a Spirograph Set and I made endless designs and patterns to give to all the family! another year we got a bicycle. These were the good years, when my mam would take a little job around christmas time, to help make an extra income. Grandparents helped out a bit.
Later mam couldn't do much anymore when she became ill and dad didn't earn a lot in the local shipyard. Things were not the same, it was much harder for us especially when dad was made redundant for quite a while.
However, we always felt surrounded by love as children by our lovely grandparents and parents. We helped our parents until we both got married, then we tried to bring a Happy Christmas to our own young families. ❤
Do you have happy memories of past Chrstmas times ? Funny or sad?