I look back at Christmases past and think fondly of the ones when I was a child and we all went back to my grandparents’ home the Old Swan Inn. Later in life, when I married my husband John, we had a large family and created the most wonderful Christmases despite being hard-up and busy with chores to do on the small holding where we lived in Kent. To pay for a turkey large enough to feed our family, I worked plucking turkeys and the costs were taken out of my meagre earnings. My family still tell me that they had idyllic childhood Christmases and that is a lovely thought…
A Winter Hope
- For several years now I have spent Christmas Day with my granddaughter Hannah, husband Tony and their three boys. Eight year old Alexander (The Great!), six year old Alfie (King Alfred who Burnt the cakes) and Arthur, not yet two (King Arthur of the Round Table) and we enjoy all the toys whizzing and whirring and dodge the balls Arthur throws which we fail to catch. Hannah’s two lovely brothers cook the Christmas lunch and yes, we do sit around a Round Table!
- I can’t manage Midnight Mass in Church these days, but I always loved that prelude to Christmas. I will always treasure the memory of sitting in a little church in Iken, Suffolk on Christmas Eve. It was bitterly cold and we shivered despite a heater in the choir pews. When the bells pealed, we went out to find it was snowing on Christmas Day- what a magical moment!
- I love choosing and wrapping gifts, but I am no whizz with Sellotape. It is great to see some of my family, including grandchildren and great grandchildren who visit during the Christmas week, especially as they are spread across the country and it is a long way to drive here.
- I always celebrate Christmas time in my family saga novels, because then I can, in my imagination, make the Christmas puddings, line them up in the larder, and the children will cheer at the pudding blazing and pour on custard and cream. My characters usually make a Christmas cake, sometimes a wartime recipe, and that is something I always loved to do. My husband used to ice the cake and commented, “If you can plaster a wall, you can ice a cake.”
- I love opening my Christmas gifts, and Christmas brings me lots of new books to read, and its lovely to curl up in bed with my favourite authors, old and new, I always love reading Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol
- I love Christmas cards, because sometimes you hear from old friends and memories are stirred. The children now make their presents and we did as children. I treasure all the hand made cards made by the young ones in my family.
- Finally, I love Christmas. I can remember being Mary in the Nativity Play as a child and prompting Joseph when he couldn’t recall his lines, and him hissing in my ear: “I’ll get you for that later!” I love the anticipation before Christmas comes, and you can’t take away happy memories, can you?
A Winter Hope by Sheila Newberry. Published by Zaffre, Paperback, eBook and audio £7.99