The Spirit of Christmas Past
- Details
- Written November 2020
We wake up on Christmas morning to find he's been. The tree is dressed, the pillow cases are filled, the mince pies and carrot have gone. But he returns in the afternoon, and we don't recognise him as the neighbour across the road who joins a party of neighbourhood children. But all I want to do is to ride my newly-arrived bicycle or get to the beach with the long-awaited surfboard.
Or we wake up on Christmas day nearly 20 years later, a few days after we were married, and we're at Carmel, a guest farm on the southern Cape coast. We have too much cream with the pudding and pay the price. Or a few years later and we're in a terraced Yorkshire house, frost inside the windows, Howard stoking the basement fire in the morning, a walk in the woods outside Harrogate after lunch, crunching the snow with him and Myra.
Or lunch at Chikankata in the 70s, Catherine arriving with an armful of the brilliantly red flame lilies picked from her secret place. They adorn the white table cloth with green Poole crockery and silver Community Plate cutlery - Margaret's pride and joy. The fireplace will have hosted the nativity scene for a week before, lit by a light up the chimney, a tiny doll placed in the manger on Christmas morning.
Or the 1989 lunch shared with 'shut-ins' at Salvation Army, Upper Norwood, our belongings all packed ready for the journey to India and then saying goodbye to Catherine. Or lunch in Madras, followed by visits to the Boys' Home for a game of cricket, and then The Haven Girls' Home for party games, whacking each other with a rolled up newspaper as we 'stir the pudding'
And then in the 90s, back in South Africa for Christmas lunch around a north Johannesburg swimming pool, or with residents at a Salvation Army drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre near Magaliesburg.
And the third time back in the UK, with grandchildren now part of the family, in Camberley or Hazel Cottage, overlooking the Surrey Hills; lunch followed by the queen's speech, the opening of gifts (Margaret's job always to collect up the wrapping paper for the black bag!) and table games and watching another clip of the two Ronnies with laughter galore. That even happened last year as we passed the dice around, playing White Elephant, produced by Wendy. Mind you we'd had a taste of that game when André introduced us to the Alo family in San Francisco's Bay Area more than ten years earlier, giving us a peep into the generous welcome they give to family and neighbours in their lavishly decorated garage each Christmas.
But we should also mention the Woodlands Unit at Queen Mary's Hospital and Willett House, where we would share a preliminary meal with Margaret before heading off to join the family. Inevitably there'll have been a visit by a Salvation Army brass ensemble from Bromley or Bexley Heath a week or so before.
Most of these Christmas days would have been preceded by an exhausting month of carols, sometimes trailing the streets carrying a double B bass or the smaller tenor horn, drenched with perspiration in the Southern Hemisphere, our teeth chattering with cold in the northern. We've been out under the stars of a Zambian sky, following paths between villages singing references to the Christmas story in Tonga. Or it might be simple carol-singing in our neighbourhood with the Mitchells in Norwood. There would have been Carols by Candlelight, carol concerts or carol services.
One of the most memorable for me was the nativity play Margaret had arranged for the Madras congregation. An angel appeared, carrying the baby and then handing it to Mary. Here was the incarnation and the virgin birth all enacted in a simple presentation. That was a little different from her being wheel-chaired to the lychgate at St Nicholas, Chislehurst, a Salvation Army band accompanying the singing as the cast of shepherds and wise men assembled around the manger to complete the scene. But the spirit of Christmas Past is also in the memories of candle-lit carol singing around the wards of Cape Town's Red Cross Children's Hospital or in later years, Chikankata, or Christmas morning in the wards of East Dulwich Hospital.
So is it this blend of everything that I'm longing for again this Christmas? Or just a sample of it? Or is it simply to hear again the laughter, the crinkle of wrapping paper, the bang of the Christmas cracker, the feeble jokes and the ill-fitting crowns they produce; to taste the turkey, the Brussels sprouts, the plum pudding? Or is it just to glance across the table and know we are together? Even if some are no longer with us, they remain with us as part of Christmas Past. Whatever happens, I'm sure it will be a happy Christmas. It will be different, but it too will become part of Christmas Past.
Many who read this are part of my Christmas Past. I wish we could meet again. But instead I offer greetings: as Tiny Tim said: 'A merry Christmas to us all; God bless us every one!'
December 2020