Christmas Past

 

It’s Christmas Eve in most places in the world right now. In New Zealand the clocks will have ticked over into Christmas Day.

It got me thinking about Christmases past. Are there things you do at Christmas that your parents or grandparents also did? Or are you starting new traditions?

I still make a Christmas fruit cake, usually in October. I remember my grandmother making hers and my mother too. In fact the recipe I use is one of Nana’s. We would get to take turns (if we happened to be visiting on the right day) and stand on the kitchen stool beside her and stir the cake to make a wish. “Stir” is not quite what we did when were small, it was more like rocking the spoon back and forth - have you ever tried stirring 2 cups of flour, 6 eggs and 1 kilo of dried fruit? Even as an adult you need a bit of muscle!

I have been rubbish since covid about sending Christmas cards (plus the cost of postage is through the roof) but my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and friends all did this diligently every year. Posting early to ensure they arrived in time, with notes or letters enclosed full of the news for the past year for each family. We would display them hung on string, like streamers, across the windows or along the walls. We would have a Christmas list and tick everyone off when we received their card. No card? Maybe next year they wouldn’t get sent one either.

We made our own decorations, using our pocket money to buy crepe paper and then weaving strips together, or twisting strips to stretch across our bedrooms. Simple times. Presents weren’t extravagant either. A new dress, a beach towel maybe a game.

One year we got a small turntable to share and I got a 45s of The Seekers “Morning Town Ride” and Sandie Shaw “Puppet on a String”. Another year I got roller skates – the strap on type which a few years later were replaced by boot skates. It may have been the roller skate year that my brother got a scooter. There were strict rules about how early we were allowed to get up, but that all went out the window at 4 or 5am when on the way back from the toilet he spotted the scooter leaning up against his bed. Doing circuits of the house, up the hallway, through the lounge and dining room and back down the hallway did not go down very well with Mum and Dad.

Christmas Days were often just us four, sometimes with cousins and grandparents. It was summer, so sometimes we would go to the beach and stay with our neighbours who owned a bach at the Mount.

In 1965 we went to South Island. I remember it wasn’t as summery down south that year. We left either straight after I got home from school, or when Dad got home from work and went to stay with my grandparents at Whakamaru. We left there early in the morning and had a breakfast picnic along the shore of Lake Taupo and headed for Wellington and the ferry. I remember going past fields of flax drying in the Manawatu and Dad or Mum explaining how it would become rope.

It was a bit of a stormy crossing and I remember we stayed in Kaikoura the first night, I think at South Bay and it was a cold, wet and windy time. I remember being very concerned about the road/rail bridges and tunnels – what if we met a train? I don’t remember the order we visited places; Christchurch, Reefton, Tekapo, Waitaki, Invercargill, Bluff and Milford Sound but I do remember there was a fair amount of precipitation going on.

The day we drove to Milford Sound was lovely and sunny and I remember we stopped for a picnic at Cascade Creek and it was the loveliest place, stony riverbank, babbling brook and hundreds of lupins.

We spent Christmas at Milford and on Christmas morning were excited to hear that it had snowed! We had never seen snow until then so it was quite a novelty. We were rugged up and bundled into the car and drove back up the road in a winter wonderland. We drove through the Homer Tunnel and found a spot to stop so we could play for a bit before going back for breakfast.

It always seemed odd having a white Christmas when it was supposed to be midsummer!

There is another Santa related story from that trip to South Island, but maybe I will keep it for another day.

Merry Christmas 2022.