Sunday, December 12, 2004
Christmas Season
A recent blog post led one of my family to ask me when I became the grinch that stole Christmas. "You're the one that made me love Christmas,"she moaned. And she's right, I probably did influence her to love Christmas because I used to love Christmas.
I just read Daisy's blog (post -Where are you Christmas?) and she too says how she doesn't look forward to Christmas with the same excitement as she once did, and reading it made me decide to tell you about what Christmas means to me.
When we were kids, Christmas pretty much meant a big bag of goodies left in a pillow case on the end of our beds. My mum didn't do the special Christmas dinner/lunch thing and most years we were either dragged off to visit rellies or taken for a picnic which mum thought was much nicer and more sensible than cooking all that hot food. In fact, before I got married (I was a teenage bride at 16), I can remember looking forward to the presents, but apart from one year when we visited a beloved Aunt who went in for the hot dinner and all the trimmings, I can't remember thinking Christmas was about anything other than the birth of Jesus, the nativity play at school and a sack full of goodies on Christmas morning. At our place, a few strands of tinsel would be strung up around the house and left to become fly-spotted until they gradually fell down sometime around the following July.
That all changed the first Christmas I visited Bob's home. My new mother-in-law was the Queen of Christmas. Every available inch was cluttered with gay decorations and I was to find, each year the colours and the theme would change with new decorations added. One year blue tinsel strung across the ceiling carried a whole band of white reindeer. Real holly and ivy and Christmas bush bloomed from vases in every room. A blow-up Santa sat fatly beneath a real tree strung with glorious glass decorations and coloured lights. Large coloured lights ringed the verandah...well, you get the picture... decorations that are common-place now but then were magical, and for me, the first time I'd ever been involved in a real, full on family Christmas.
This family had a whole string of Christmas parties. The friends party, which our friends became part of, everyone dressed in their best, drinking Pimms and punch and brandy and beer with masses of home-cooked food, Christmas cakes, puddings. The Christmas Eve party for all the children in the family - and it was a large family- where 20 or so kids from 0 to 12 would sit around in front of the tree singing Christmas carols and every one would receive a carefully wrapped package from under the tree and late in the evening, someone would read the poem, "The Night Before Christmas".
Christmas day started with ham and eggs and fresh toast and juice and presents under the lighted tree. Lunch was the highlight of the day, always the full hot deal with oven glazed ham, crisp turkey, pork, roast vegetables, mince pies and the two youngest children always carried in the flaming Christmas pudding doused with brandy. Oh they were great Christmases. That's when I got the spirit of Christmas and that's how I wanted my Christmases to be.
So once I had my first son, we joined in the wonderful family Christmas, but our home was decorated too and we always had a party for friends on Christmas Eve. They were wonderful parties and late in the night when almost everyone had gone home, we'd be up putting the bicycles together and sneaking presents for each other out of their hiding places to join the heaps under the tree.
I got a new husband and two more sons but the Christmas tradition continued and widened. All the family would come on Christmas Eve and stay over for Christmas day. Sometimes we did the hot lunch or dinner, sometimes we had salads and seafood but the ham and the turkey remained constant and so did the delight of the whole family in this celebration. Often someone would invite a 'stray' along. Someone they knew who was away from home or didn't have anwhere else to go for Christmas day. Most Christmases there weren't less than 15 around the Christmas table and often that many staying in the house.
Most years we had a fresh cut pine Christmas tree and the smell of pine needles in the house still means Christmas to me. One year I incurred the undying wrath of my sons when I decided to go 'arty' and spray a dead branch silver and decorate it with coloured bows in place of the traditional tree. I've never been allowed to forget that mistake!
Time moved on, children grew up, I got a new partner and inherited his family too as part of my Christmas. Christmas only got bigger and better every year. We still did the ham and eggs for breakfast, the family still came and stayed on Christmas Eve and we lay around all day playing the new games, telling jokes and reading stories before tucking into a huge lunch.
My sons grown I decided to sell my house and travel for a while... and that was the end of Christmas for me. I no longer have a house I can decorate. I live too far away for family to visit. So now, the wheel has turned and I visit them. We still get together. It's still nice and some of the children who used to come every year to my Christmas have grown up remembering those Christmases and now emulate them for their own children.
That's it in the end. Things change but if you can bring joy into the lives of others, particularly children, then the spirit and the joy lives on in their lives and the traditions they carry on are passed on to their children.
So, I'm not really the grinch that stole Christmas now, just someone whose time at the centre of the Christmas festivities has been passed on to the next generation. I think Pete Seeger summed it up best, so for my Christmas message I'll leave you with his words. May each of you be happy to be in the time and the season that is right for this part of your life and may you all have a joyous Christmas.
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
Pete SeegerCD: If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope & Struggle Words adapted from The Bible, Book of Ecclesiastes
Buy this CD from Amazon.com
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to be born, a time to die A time to plant, a time to reap A time to kill, a time to heal A time to laugh, a time to weep
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to build up, a time to break down A time to dance, a time to mourn A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time of love, a time of hate A time of war, a time of peace A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose A time to rend, a time to sew A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.
I'm taking a blogging vacation over the festive season so you probably won't hear from me again until January.
I just read Daisy's blog (post -Where are you Christmas?) and she too says how she doesn't look forward to Christmas with the same excitement as she once did, and reading it made me decide to tell you about what Christmas means to me.
When we were kids, Christmas pretty much meant a big bag of goodies left in a pillow case on the end of our beds. My mum didn't do the special Christmas dinner/lunch thing and most years we were either dragged off to visit rellies or taken for a picnic which mum thought was much nicer and more sensible than cooking all that hot food. In fact, before I got married (I was a teenage bride at 16), I can remember looking forward to the presents, but apart from one year when we visited a beloved Aunt who went in for the hot dinner and all the trimmings, I can't remember thinking Christmas was about anything other than the birth of Jesus, the nativity play at school and a sack full of goodies on Christmas morning. At our place, a few strands of tinsel would be strung up around the house and left to become fly-spotted until they gradually fell down sometime around the following July.
That all changed the first Christmas I visited Bob's home. My new mother-in-law was the Queen of Christmas. Every available inch was cluttered with gay decorations and I was to find, each year the colours and the theme would change with new decorations added. One year blue tinsel strung across the ceiling carried a whole band of white reindeer. Real holly and ivy and Christmas bush bloomed from vases in every room. A blow-up Santa sat fatly beneath a real tree strung with glorious glass decorations and coloured lights. Large coloured lights ringed the verandah...well, you get the picture... decorations that are common-place now but then were magical, and for me, the first time I'd ever been involved in a real, full on family Christmas.
This family had a whole string of Christmas parties. The friends party, which our friends became part of, everyone dressed in their best, drinking Pimms and punch and brandy and beer with masses of home-cooked food, Christmas cakes, puddings. The Christmas Eve party for all the children in the family - and it was a large family- where 20 or so kids from 0 to 12 would sit around in front of the tree singing Christmas carols and every one would receive a carefully wrapped package from under the tree and late in the evening, someone would read the poem, "The Night Before Christmas".
Christmas day started with ham and eggs and fresh toast and juice and presents under the lighted tree. Lunch was the highlight of the day, always the full hot deal with oven glazed ham, crisp turkey, pork, roast vegetables, mince pies and the two youngest children always carried in the flaming Christmas pudding doused with brandy. Oh they were great Christmases. That's when I got the spirit of Christmas and that's how I wanted my Christmases to be.
So once I had my first son, we joined in the wonderful family Christmas, but our home was decorated too and we always had a party for friends on Christmas Eve. They were wonderful parties and late in the night when almost everyone had gone home, we'd be up putting the bicycles together and sneaking presents for each other out of their hiding places to join the heaps under the tree.
I got a new husband and two more sons but the Christmas tradition continued and widened. All the family would come on Christmas Eve and stay over for Christmas day. Sometimes we did the hot lunch or dinner, sometimes we had salads and seafood but the ham and the turkey remained constant and so did the delight of the whole family in this celebration. Often someone would invite a 'stray' along. Someone they knew who was away from home or didn't have anwhere else to go for Christmas day. Most Christmases there weren't less than 15 around the Christmas table and often that many staying in the house.
Most years we had a fresh cut pine Christmas tree and the smell of pine needles in the house still means Christmas to me. One year I incurred the undying wrath of my sons when I decided to go 'arty' and spray a dead branch silver and decorate it with coloured bows in place of the traditional tree. I've never been allowed to forget that mistake!
Time moved on, children grew up, I got a new partner and inherited his family too as part of my Christmas. Christmas only got bigger and better every year. We still did the ham and eggs for breakfast, the family still came and stayed on Christmas Eve and we lay around all day playing the new games, telling jokes and reading stories before tucking into a huge lunch.
My sons grown I decided to sell my house and travel for a while... and that was the end of Christmas for me. I no longer have a house I can decorate. I live too far away for family to visit. So now, the wheel has turned and I visit them. We still get together. It's still nice and some of the children who used to come every year to my Christmas have grown up remembering those Christmases and now emulate them for their own children.
That's it in the end. Things change but if you can bring joy into the lives of others, particularly children, then the spirit and the joy lives on in their lives and the traditions they carry on are passed on to their children.
So, I'm not really the grinch that stole Christmas now, just someone whose time at the centre of the Christmas festivities has been passed on to the next generation. I think Pete Seeger summed it up best, so for my Christmas message I'll leave you with his words. May each of you be happy to be in the time and the season that is right for this part of your life and may you all have a joyous Christmas.
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
Pete SeegerCD: If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope & Struggle Words adapted from The Bible, Book of Ecclesiastes
Buy this CD from Amazon.com
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to be born, a time to die A time to plant, a time to reap A time to kill, a time to heal A time to laugh, a time to weep
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to build up, a time to break down A time to dance, a time to mourn A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time of love, a time of hate A time of war, a time of peace A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time for every purpose, under Heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose A time to rend, a time to sew A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.
I'm taking a blogging vacation over the festive season so you probably won't hear from me again until January.
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