Nowadays, after my kids are grown up and with an ex wife behind me, and a wonderful new partner now, I just look forward to some valuable time with her during the day, maybe a bucks fizz to start the day, helping (or she would say hindering) with the Christmas dinner, doing the simple things like listening to all the old faves on the radio as I set the table up and open the winde, being facinated how she keeps a cool head as she gets on with a 5 course meal without steam coming out of her ears until I realise she had her own bottle of wine hidden in the kitchen as she was cooking!!!! Another tradition for the past few years is telling Peeps what Scallie is getting for Crimbo so that she can wind her up for a few weeks before! Poor Peeps sure gets called some nasty names during this time!
My Dad use to work very hard all year round, sometimes working in the evenings as well as his day job, just so he could give the 3 of us (my sister Linda and my brother Bob) a few little extras as a treat. He use to buy 5 crates of fizzy drinks, normally Orange, Lemonade, Tonic Water, Ginger Ale and Bitter Lemon...each crate had 24 bottles in it and we were allowed to drink them whenever we liked! Needless to say the orange and lemonade use to disappear fast as they were the favourites. After we had finished those we weren't quite so enthusiastic to drink the rest especially the ginger ale. That was YUCK!!! To this day I am not a great lover of it. memories eh???
I was the worst of us 3 kids for getting to sleep on the night before Christmas because I was always just sooooo excited about what was going to be in my Christmas stocking. Most years it was pretty much the same though...like I said ealier, the money wasn't around for lavish gifts..but every year I always had in my stocking the following things...
A satsuma, an apple, a banana, nuts, a very small toy, a pencil case, chocolate pennies, and a bag of sweets. Each year, even though I knew more or less what would be in the stocking, the excitement was bigger than the previous year. We always had one "main" present each, which we weren't allowed to open until we were all washed and dressed and ready for the day. That rule in itself use to cause arguments between us kids as Bob would be stuffing his mouth with food from his stocking and wouldn't get dressed...Linda was always trying to be bossy (she's the eldest) and telling us to clear up our sweet wrappers....oh to be young again!
Well as you know, my childhood was a long time ago but those few little things have stayed with me always...when my 2 boys were born and we celebrated Christmas, the one thing I carried on from my Mum was "never cook on C.Eve" and to this day I never have. Sadly my Mum is no longer alive now but she left many of her traditions behind.
