Ghost of Christmas Past

We moved house just before I went to Grammar school at 11 & oddly I don't seem to be able to remember anything about Christmas in our first house at all. I do remember it being very cold in winter with no heating other than a coal fire in the living room & ice & snow inside the windows in my bedroom. My blankets were heavy, ex services I think, but not warm. Having a wash in the bathroom was a challenge to be overcome as quickly as possible. Fortunately I was only allowed one bath a week.

The new house did have radiators at some point, but I can't remember whether it was initially or later on. It was still cold though.

I had a stocking - one of my Dad's long socks. It wasn't filled with presents. There were tangerines, nuts & sweets. I regularly got books for presents. Always hardbacks. Always Classics. Mostly illustrated. I loved them & could read for ages. My daughter has still got some of them. I remember a compendium of games & a Bagatelle. I also remember a beautiful home made dolls house too. When I got older there were clothes. There simply wasn't the money when I was a child & there certainly wasn't the choice. I was born in 1945 so post war austerity lasted for a long time.

Children played simple games & mostly amused themselves. Working class parents were too busy earning a living & making ends meet to play with children. They were worn out & seemed old to me. Life then was frugal looking back through the prism of today.

We always had a real tree with real candles which were lit on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. Yes, the curtains did catch light one year! My mother was German, so Christmas was traditional & we didn't deviate. Christmas Eve was more important than Christmas Day. I always had iced Lebkuchen and can't eat it to this day. The smell and taste immediately transport me back. Nowadays cooked red cabbage is quite common, but when I was a child no one else ate it as a hot vegetable.

My mother always worked very hard but particularly so at Christmas. She was a good basic cook - meat & 2 veg. She did quite a few German dishes - potato pancakes which I liked with jam. It seems an odd combination but I loved it. She also did normal pancakes with various fruits - again delicious. Her gravy was wonderful & she abhorred Bisto with good reason. Her German cakes, Gugelhupf for example, were really good.

Now I am older I appreciate just how hard she worked to put good food on the table. My father & I took it all for granted. We offered to help, but it was difficult to match her exacting standards.

Both my parents must have sacrificed a lot to "do" Christmas. In fact it's only now I realise how hard things must have been for them all through my childhood & adolescence. We all take our parents for granted. We see them as a constant in our lives & not as individuals. We don't really ask them about their lives & what they want. Once we do begin to empathise it is often too late. So I think about Christmas past at this time of year. For me it isn't a particularly happy memory, but at least I understand more from my parents point of view.

Such a shame I can't tell them that. Family Christmases aren't necessarily jolly occasions for everyone. There are often tensions under the surface which come to the fore. Too much eating, drinking & sitting about can be claustrophobic & lead to arguments. It is an opportunity though, once a year, to try to get into the real spirit of kindness, tolerance & thanksgiving.