By Barbara Cover, ContributorBEING A senior citizen, I have seen the changes in the celebration of Christmas over the years and although I know that I am prejudiced, I do believe that by and large, Christmases of yore were so much nicer.
My earliest memory of Christmas was when I was about 4 and I can well remember that the season probably started from October, when it literally rained the entire month of October, and we began our winter. The preparations started in full swing in early December with the soaking of fruits, etc., and the writing of letters to Santa and if you were a child then, you had to be on your best behaviour so that Santa would come through the chimney.
Of course we had no chimney but do remember the wide-eyed innocence of children, they believed it all and, of course, in the morning when you got up, there was the Santa Bag containing all or most of what you had asked for. To us children, it was a miracle and a joy to savour.
I also remember that on Christmas eve my nanny, dear Emily, took me downtown, I imagine it was, to see the lights and the street vendors, etc. I remember this particular Christmas when I had the fabulous amount of a sixpence in my bag which was strung over my shoulder and I was picked. Yes, we also had crime in those days. I was inconsolable and dear Emily held me close and gave me comfort and took me home quite tired from crying and ready for bed.
And then on Christmas morning, my godfather again took me downtown but this time to Victoria Pier to watch the boats take off and was it not cold. As I mentioned before, from October onwards the sweaters came out to ward off the chill. This is something we now do not have because we have practically destroyed our forests and most of our land is now used for housing and for some strange reason, when building, no one thinks of replanting trees.
In the good old days when someone bought a house, the criteria was the amount of land you would get and the amount of fruit trees. Each house had a back garden and kept fowls and each weekend the chickens were beheaded and dunked into boiling water for the feathers to be plucked, but back to Christmas.
After my trip downtown, I was probably taken home in a surrey (yes, believe it or not a horse-drawn carriage) - my godfather knew how to make children happy.
Memories keep fluttering across my mind - the traditional egg nog on Christmas morning before going to church. My mother did all her shopping for us children early in December for Christmas and for returning to school in January. She was quite firm in what she purchased - no frills, she kept within her budget and, of course, we got our special dresses, which must only be worn to church and also shoes for church and school. We all had piggy banks in which we saved and if we wanted anything that my mother was not prepared to use her funds to purchase she pointed out to us that if we wanted that particular item she would pay the basic and the difference would come out of our piggy bank. As we got older and the wedge heel came in, my mother was having none of this; wedge heels were more expensive so if we wanted wedge heel, we would have to use our piggy bank.
On Christmas Day after church and a large lunch, we would now light our firecrackers and thunderbolts. Now the thunderbolts were really tremendous and we would take great fun in putting it under an empty tin and light it and off it would fly in the air. This was great fun but one Christmas tragedy struck. My sister was not quick enough to remove her hands before the thunderbolt went off and she was badly burnt. Thunderbolts were banned from there on.
On Boxing Day, we all went to the Garden Party at Winchester Park and once again our piggy bank came into play. My mother would give us what she could afford, probably the entrance fee but for the rides, etc., we had to use our piggy banks.
Like everything else, we grew up coming into our teens and on one particular Boxing Day, my sister, who was about 13, and who was quite pretty, had all the young men really giving her the once over and one got up the courage to quickly give her a buss on the cheek. That was the end of our garden party days - like thunderbolts, this too was banned.
Of course, we had to grow into adults and start working but we still had fun. King Street on Christmas Eve was our promenade and we just walked up and down and had fun. Oh, for the good old days.
