CHRISTMAS REFLECTIONS

And so this is Christmas. Well nearly. It is my Birthday though. I remember getting John and Yoko's peaceful tune in a bundle of 45's my Sister gave me one December 23rd. They were wrapped in baco-foil, which was typical of my off-beat Sis. It looked superb, a big chrome block with a bow on top, like a slab of light in the darkening season. 

There were Jimmy Osmond and his Long haired Lover, Elton John and Crocodile Rock, Mud's Tiger Feet and so many more. About 10 in total. I loved receiving it and like a silvered window to the past I often think about it.

Material things are strange. They last longer than people. They last longer than the past and move with us into the future. Like time travellers. Heralds. Toys, books, records, ornaments. Our childhoods were flecked with stuff, which now, fifty years later, sparkle in our memories like stars; long abandoned but still emitting light. Some of these things came with us into the here and now, buffeted by the passage of time but still there beside us.

For me toys are a portal into the past; my past, a time of innocence, tinsel-decked fairy lights and unbroken sunshine, when all the people I cared about and who cared about me where still alive. It was their time - and my childhood - and one I am so glad to have had with them as they, my Parents, carried me into the future on their broad shoulders and placed me gently in a life of my own.

Toys emit memories like pulsars and as another year turns this blog is my way of collecting those glimpsed recollections, a screen on which the distant fairy-lit days of a childhood Christmas coalesce and shimmer for one more beautiful day.

Merry Christmas readers.