I watched an old animated version of A Christmas Carol at School
today. Scrooge was voiced by the great Alistair Sim.
It’s the first bit of Christmas spirit I’ve felt this season. It was itself like a visit from the Ghosts of Christmas.
Its early I know but not as early as the Christmas tress
that have appeared lit up in the local garden centre. Its well and truly here
in the shops and on the TV.
This cartoon of Dickensian cheer I watched, always a
favourite in any format, got me thinking about the festive season when we were
kids in the Sixties.
A sort of Ghost of Christmas Past moment, where Scrooge is swept along in the sky to moments long gone.
I'm on the slip-road to 60 now and my memories are hazy at best. I so wish I could clean them
up, remove the fog and sharpen the images. I have feelings more than memories I think. A feeling that Christmas back then was a huge celebration involving lots of people all coming and going from the house all December long.
People like my parents’ friends, Aunties,
Uncles, Grandparents, cousins and of course my siblings. I was the youngest of
five and early on in my life my eldest sister was married so I had a
Brother-in-Law too.
My second Sister married shortly after and by the
late Sixties I had two Brothers-in Law, by which point I also had a nephew and
a niece. Yes, by the close of the Sixties when I was 10 I was already an Uncle!
Being an RC household there was a crib displayed on the monk’s
seat in the hallway next to the GPO telephone. Little pot figures of the holy
family set in straw. They were surrounded by cute pot animals like cows and
sheep. At its centre was a pot manger.
I adored that crib, which nestled into
itself all Advent and Christmas and I have no idea what happened to it. I hope
its coming down from the attic again somewhere soon but more likely its waiting
to be displayed in the deep darkness of landfill.
We also had lodgers in the house. Dock-men who worked on
Preston Docks in the warehouses and the cranes. It was a fabulously atmospheric
and maritime place the Docks, an exotic fortress of steel, brick and briney water
where huge ships emptied fruit and goods day and night.
There were exotic
spiders too, snuck in on the bananas and tales of fanged tarantulas hiding in
the webbed sheds kept me enthralled. At the stroke of New Year all the ships would
sound their loud horns and we knew the year had turned full circle once more.
I adored Christmas Day. So much that I would try to recreate
the jumble of prezzies I got on the settee again on Boxing Day. It was never
the same. They were all unwrapped but it was an attempt to recapture the magic
of Christmas morning. In many ways this blog is me still trying to recreate
that settee full of Christmas toys after all this time.
I recall virtually every toy I ever had and over the last
ten years I’ve shared these with you. I also remember the odd gift I got other
people like a book of silver assay marks for my Mum and some car wax and a shamee
for my Dad. Somewhere I may have a list from one year of what I got my family
and I know I have a gift tag I made depicting a Shogun.
The meals, the movement, the family, the songs, the programmes and the
conversations have all gone but the feeling I have for that time is kept alive and
well. My Sixties Christmases still burn strong. Like glowing embers in the grey
carbon of the past they illuminate my way through the dark winters even now and hopefully will do for years to come.
Are you thinking of the coming season?
I loved xmas above all else as a kid and unlike you Woodsy, I have a near photographic memory of childhood. So much so that the present rarely comes close to the wonderful recollections of the past. Current xmas is a stressful bout of buying, spending and eating. The magic and sentiment has disappeared now that the kids are grown up and the mystery has evaporated. I always loved the live action Scrooge with Alistair Sim, who for me is the eponymous character. There are moments when the tree is up and the night is quiet when I can regress quietly over a glass of port and imagine im 7 again and one or two of the mountain of presents under the tree are space toys and its 1968 all over again.
ReplyDeleteYou should write a book about your childhood Bill. Your memory would be a boon and not a burden like mine! I know those moments you mention when the night is quiet and the xmas tree is glowing. Its Yuletide whispering.
DeleteIn the U.S. we sneak one family holiday in just before December.We celebrate Thanksgiving on the third Thursday of November.I have cooked Thanksgiving's traditional roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings for many years in my own home.In more recent years,my family has shrunk to just my mother and brother,and mom's house has become the setting for a smaller,but no less joyful meal.I usually request the following day,Friday,off from work so I can have a long weekend in which to begin trundling Christmas deco down from the attic.So, til then, I'm in kind of a holding pattern,raking billions of leaves and preparing for Winter.
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