Week 4

Sian from High in the Sky has invited us to share a Christmas story in the few weeks before Christmas,
For the last week of the brilliant Christmas Club I asked my brothers for some childhood Christmas memories. I thought it would be fun to have some different memories from the same family.
I got three replies:

The Turkey!

Going to the auction in the old cattle market with Paul and Dad.
Dad buying for the best price and size he could afford.
He also bought a chicken as well as a turkey one year.
Alan had a swing that used to hang between the kitchen and dining room on two large cup hooks. One year the turkey was suspended by it’s legs from one of the hooks, beneath the head of the bird was a small pan to catch the drips of blood. Ping ping ping came the noise of the dripping blood, yuk, what a daft thing to remember.
Oh yes, the turkey was also hung up in the garage one year.
Watching Mum plucking a turkey in the dining room.

The Turkey!

Having watched Dad remove the lower part of its legs, one of us would chase the others around pulling the tendons to make the claws move.
Mum used to boil the neck of the turkey; it was a treat to suck on the meat before the others got to it.

The Turkey!

Dad sewing up the beast after it was stuffed; he used one of Mum’s darning needles.

The Games

Mum, Dad, Uncle John and Grampy making up games to play. One game took place in the front room with the lights off. We had to wait outside in the hall until we were called in to the room. As we went in, one at a time, you were guided to the far side of the room by one of the adults; a light would come on from behind a sheet. As the light moved up, down, sideways, you had to follow its path with your face really close to the sheet. The light would move a bit faster, then it suddenly dashed over to one side and you could see it was a candle. At that point you were hit in the face with a soaking wet dishcloth.
You couldn’t make this stuff up could you?

Merry Christmas from Gerard

Source

The Turkey!

An oversized turkey, a tiny oven and Mother’s special stuffing recipe.

I am now convinced that our Mother had the sole responsibility of sustaining “Chiltern Herbs” in business. From about September each year a few plastic packets of the pale dust were bought each week from Sainsbury’s in Aylesbury.
I remember, as Christmas day got nearer, the basket on the kitchen cabinet door was filled to capacity with packets of stuffing mix. Christmas eve was spent in tears not through sadness but peeling and chopping the world’s largest sack of onions to mix in with the stuffing. It was then carefully divided into smaller bowls ready for family who had left home to collect for their Christmas dinners because Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without that stuffing.

Years later one family member wanted to recreate the family favourite. The biggest shock was that Sainsbury’s no longer sold Chiltern Herbs stuffing mix – no call for it they said! I wonder why? (because our darling mother had passed away) I tracked down the illusive dust in a Waitrose store in Wales – needless to say it was now sold in posh packaging and the most expensive thing on the shelf of ingredients. A twenty minute queue in the post office and £2 in stamps later, it was posted off in time for Christmas with love and fond memories of Mother’s special stuffing recipe.
Source
Merry Christmas from Alan

Martin & I opening up everyone’s presents at 4 in the morning at no. 8 (we were very young when we lived here)…dad went mad!!
Hiding the crib figure of Jesus some where amongst the straw based crib.

Martin & I swinging the 26lb fresh turkey (guts an’ all) as it hung from hooks in the dining room, dripping blood everywhere and missing the newspaper put down to keep the floor clean, getting caught by dad again!!!
Having to wait until after the queen’s speech before we got to open all the family presents!!

Merry Christmas from Tim

Not so different then? Merry Christmas to you all x

Mel has posted (on 11th December) her thoughts on her Christmas Tree which has inspired me to think about our tree.
It is one of the things I love most about Christmas. My tree has to be real, a broad needled Nordman fir. I love the gracefulness of this tree and the perfume is wonderful. It takes a long time and much hilarity for me to choose the pefect tree, tall, slim and graceful, (everything that I am not) I buy mine in the week before Christmas and bring it into the house on 22nd. The needles stay firmly attached as I treat it like a house plant and keep it watered. I like to decorate it on 23rd. It is an evenings labour of love for us all. Ben used to hang the decorations on the lower branches and over the years he hung higher up the tree until now he puts the fairy on the top with out the need for a ladder! I love to watch each decoration as it is unwrapped from it’s tissue, so carefully wrapped and stored away for the last 12 months. Each one is placed in exactly the right place, after a few glasses of mulled wine the boys will begin to have fun with me by telling me things aren’t right and must be moved! For many years now we have decorated our tree with red or gold decorations and tiny white lights. Each decoration has been bought or made and a new one added each year. We started with just lovely red baubles and some parcels I made from match boxes covered with wadding and red christmas fabric tied up with narrow red or green ribbon. As the years have gone by we add to the tree choosing something special each time.
Over the years I have used great long strings of red beads draped across the branches, some times I join them together at the top of the tree and let them fall vertically down to the floor, they look very elegant.
When Ben was young we had an artificial tree in the dining room which he and my minded children decorated themselves. He loved his very own set of lights, bright colourful baubles and decorations that we had when we were first married, and special things that the children had made that we had for years. One year he wanted the tree on the front door step complete with lights that he & his dad made work from inside the house, I loved it there!
Today Ben & I were talking about buying and decorating the Christmas tree, I asked him for some Christmas memories.
He said ‘tinsel’
“We don’t have tinsel’ his dad chipped in.
“Exactly!” said Ben “in fact, that’s the memory! we were the only family in my school that didn’t have tinsel in the house!”
Actually he said that his Christmas “was completely different from everyone else because “we don’t decorate until it’s almost here and take it down as soon as it’s over and don’t have any tinsel in the house”
“You should see your face” said Paul! “You wicked mother!”

So about tinsel, do you love it? or not love it?

Week 3

Sian from High in the Sky has invited us to share a Christmas story in the few weeks before Christmas, here is mine for this week.

Do reindeer eat carrots?

Christmas 1995

I especially loved Christmas this year. My mother, brother and his young son stayed with us.
My son was six years old. My brother’s boy, James was eight and was wavering in his belief in the man in red.
We had such a lovely and exciting Christmas eve talking about Father Christmas, when would he come, what would he bring, would he know that James was in a different place to last year.
James was worried about our fire place “We shouldn’t light the fire Aunty Miriam because he would get burnt!”
This year I had found some little packets of reindeer food at one of the garden centre’s I thought it would help set the scene.
Before bedtime the boys had been outside on the drive to sprinkle the treat for Santa’s reindeer and they had also left out a huge carrot for them.
“Do reindeers eat carrots aunty Miriam?” wondered James?
“Well, I’m not really sure, but we will leave it just in case James” was the best I could offer.
“I think they do” said Ben enthusiastically! (Anything to make sure he came!)
The boys hung their stockings and left a mince pie and a glass of milk by the fire for Father Christmas, with nothing more to do the boys had to go to bed!
As every child knows “He won’t come while you are awake”
The usual Christmas Eve followed; restless excited chatty boys sharing a bedroom, laughing and keeping each other awake.
Excited adults, whispering, laughing, drinking, keeping each other awake as we made the room ready for Christmas morning.
There was the usual getting up & down to the boys or calling out
“No he hasn’t been yet” and “He won’t come while you are awake”
No presents go under the tree in our house until Ben has gone to bed!
(Even now I don’t put his gifts under the tree until Christmas morning when he is still asleep!)
Lots of creeping around followed, bringing the gifts carefully stashed away all over the house into the sitting room to be arranged under the tree. Some presents we leave in the fire grate; a little soot and ash is sprinkled on ones near by. Streamers are everywhere! A paper cover goes onto the sitting room door with the number 25 on it. (Now one of Ben’s favourite memories)
Some time in the early hours we got to our beds and just a few hours later boys shouting with joy wake us!
“He’s been, he’s been” when the stockings are found.

Later that morning Nanny was looking out of Ben’s bedroom window
“There is something on the drive boys, come and see, whatever is it?”
Two little boys ran outside to look.
James and Ben returned, with eyes as big as saucers, holding two pieces of carrot with strange teeth marks in, a little piece of mince pie and the certain knowledge that reindeer do indeed eat carrots!

Sian from High in the Sky has invited us to share a Christmas story in the few weeks before Christmas, here is mine for this week.

Every year this little Christmas Nativity Scene brings treasured memories for me and laughter for my son.

The nativity scene belonged to my mother and was put out every Christmas throughout our childhood. You will see that the baby Jesus is wrapped in ‘swaddling clothes’ It is a piece of cloth my mother wrapped him in many years ago.
My younger brother insisted that the baby lay in his manger every day during advent whereas my very traditional Irish mother forbid it! The child wasn’t born until Christmas morning and so the manger was to be empty until then.
So, every day the baby was put in the manger by Gerard and every day he was taken out of the manger by mother, first he was in and then he was out, and so it continued all through advent for many years until he got so bashed that his arm fell off!!
My poor mother was heart broken and wrapped him up as you see him here.
When mum died the little crib came to me.
The story of the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes gets more outrageous with every telling and now that my son tells our visitors the story I suspect that by the end of the evening the baby has no limbs at all!
Merry Christmas Gerard…Miriam x