Dec 1

Dec 1 A Child's Christmas in Wales

Restraint is not a word that AMM has in her vocabulary, as evidenced by the fact that she’s been getting excited about Christmas since way back in August.

I on the other hand, save up my excitement and then allow it to burst out in the few weeks running up to Christmas Day itself. What does that say about our two characters I wonder?

OK so, it’s the first Sunday in Advent. I judge that the excitement may begin.

At home growing up, this was the time that we went hunting for the ‘Christmas Box’ in the junk room. It contained three sets of lights for the tree, two of which never really worked or were considered a fire hazard. There were a host of ready made crepe paper decorations which had been crushed to the point they were not longer recognizable. New ones had to be made. These were two strips of crepe paper concertinaed together to grace the ceilings. Who knows how long this tradition had been done in our family. I fear a very long time.

A later innovation was Spray Snow and stencils which were highly exciting to spray on, but a devil to scrape off in January. And in the run up to Christmas at school we were taught one year how to make snowflake designs out of shiny paper.

The tree was always a curiosity. Occasionally we’d have a bought tree but as we got older and as a family noticeably poorer, we’d head into the orchard and bring in branches from a Yew Tree, probably breaking all sorts of superstitions in the process. That would be decorated with the afore-mentioned lights, and ‘baubles of all eras.’ Their number got fewer year-on-year as some fell off the tree and smashed. There was one Annus Horribilis when the cat spectacularly brought the tree down in a thunderous crash a day before Christmas Day itself, shattering baubles left, right, and centre. It was however a talking point over Christmas dinner.

In my early teens the central heating blew up, and we had to rely on coal and log fires in any of the rooms we wanted to spend time in. At Christmastime however fires would be lit in most of the rooms, to air the place before the relatives turned up. It was my job to lug in the coal and gather in any logs I could find in the orchard and to ‘keep the home fires burning.’.

It was hard work, but it all added to the magic of the season. It made the days feel special, and the evenings even more so.

Let the festivities begin!