Joyce at Christmas by Jenny Sanders

Joyce at Christmas

By Jennifer Sanders

Oh my goodness; I’ve had to turn the telly off. I can’t stand it anymore. Have you been watching? Adverts! That’s all that seems to be on at the moment. Loud and brash they are, all shouting at me to buy stuff for Christmas.

I’ve got a good three weeks yet, but they’re already urging me to splash out on fancy food and drink that would give me indigestion well into the new year. They’d do better to be advertising those pink indigestion tablets you used to get. My husband, Tom, always kept a little tube of those in his pocket; very handy. And the toys! Have you seen them? Who spends that much on their kids? Honestly; it’s indecent. Seems to me their message is that the more you spend, the more you must love them. What a lot of nonsense! Everyone’s competing with everyone else to get the newest, loudest, brightest, flashiest model of anything and everything. Not much peace and goodwill there. Anyway, we all know kids would rather play with the wrapping and the box. I could just change the channel, I suppose, but it will be more of the same: Christmas specials, fake snow, and forced cheerfulness. Hark at me; I sound like a right old Ebenezer Scrooge, don’t I? Bah; humbug! No, that’s not me at all. I love Christmas; I just don’t want to start it weeks in advance. It takes the glitter out of it for me. Same with Easter. I don’t want hot cross buns in February, thank you very much.

Of course, we all think the old Christmases were the best, don’t we? The ones from our childhood, when it always snowed and the family cuddled up together in a warm house of love and laughter. It can’t always have been that way. I think we know that really. Often it was just cold and grey like any other English winter day and we probably squabbled like starlings.

I see the newsagent has got one of those fiber optic trees up; you know, where the branches change color every few seconds. I don’t fancy one of those; too frenetic for me – think I’d go cross-eyed in two minutes flat. I like a good old plain green one. It doesn’t have to be real; an artificial one is just as good. They last forever – just as well if you’ve seen the prices of the real ones – and they don’t shed all over your carpet either. Anyway, they don’t seem to sell them with roots anymore, so you can’t plant them once the twelve days are over like you used to be able to do. They just get tossed onto the street these days. I know the Council comes along and shreds them in some noisy machine, but it seems a waste to me when we’re all being urged to recycle and such.

I do remember our Dad getting a tree with roots on it one Christmas Eve, when we still lived up on the moors. We were all little then but he bought it home so proudly. Someone had come to the farm with the last few they hadn’t shifted in town and he didn’t want to take back to clutter up his yard. We couldn’t believe our luck. We’d made those oldfashioned paper chains from sticky strips. Remember those? You had to lick the ends and loop them together, but we always ended up splodging flour and water glue on them because the sticky bit didn’t work. Anyway, we hung some of those on our special tree and cut out snowflakes from folded newspaper. I remember Mum taking the smallest dolly we had, and making her a dress out of silver baking foil so she could be the fairy on the top. It was magical. There was still rationing then, but because Dad was working on the farm with Grandad, we had access to things like meat and eggs, so we were spoilt. We ate a big roast meal and Mum cobbled together a Christmas pudding padded out with stale bread

soaked in milk and sweetened with carrots. We had lots of those from the veggie patch and even some dried apples from the orchard. I don’t think presents featured as prominently as they seem to be these days. We all had something knitted by Granny Wilson – probably made out of one of Grandad’s old jumpers which she’d unpicked. Dad would carve us something: a toy train or an animal for the boys and Mum made me a pair of wooden dolls out of old-fashioned clothes pegs and fabric leftovers. I carried those around with me for years until they fell apart. It’s all batteries and flashing lights now. I wonder what this year will be like? My friend Viv will be here after we’ve been to the service at church. I can hear the bells ringing from my bed; have I ever told you that? Of course, they ring every Sunday, but there’s something special about hearing them on Christmas morning. I’ll just pop a chicken in the oven for us; roast some potatoes and boil a bit of veg. We don’t need a whacking great turkey. We can fancy it up with some bread sauce and cranberry jelly. She’s making a trifle and I’ll do some mince pies. A whole pudding is too much, but that’ll be lovely and I’ll pick up some double cream for a treat. My mouth’s watering already. I had thought I’d be going to Matthew and Hilary’s this year. You know he’s a surgeon? She’s something in obstetrics. You don’t like to ask for details, do you? Anyway, there’s something peculiar about their shifts and it just doesn’t work. Corinne and Steve and their two are off to his parents in Wales this year, but they’ll come through on Christmas Eve. That’ll be nice. We’ll just have some soup and I’ll make some seasonal shortbread. Star-shaped, I

expect. The kids love that. I didn’t think I’d know what to do with teenagers, but really, they’re just people aren’t they?

Connor, my grandson – handsome boy – is taller than his mum these days; can you believe it? Must be from his dad’s side. He makes me laugh and, my goodness, he can find his way around a computer. He showed me something the last time they came. I was mesmerized. Honestly, his fingers moved so fast on the keyboard, and all manner of exciting pictures and films came up. And Hailey - well, she turned thirteen this past year and spends most of her life on her phone. I think she does Instachat, or something; and the Facebook thing. Seems like a waste of time to me. Honestly, no one has that many friends. If I want to talk to Viv, I ring her up properly or go round for a cup of tea. Or she comes here. Why mess about on a screen when you can do that? I suppose if you’re a long way away from your family, that’s a bit different. Especially at Christmas. Doesn’t work for me of course, as I’ve only got the old sort of phone. Perhaps I’ll get one of those fancy ones for Christmas myself. That’d be a turn up for the books wouldn’t it? Viv would laugh her socks off. Imagine me sitting on the bus texting away. I can’t see it myself. Think of all the things I’d miss if I wasn’t looking out of the window. I like to see who else is on the bus as well, and what they’re wearing. You can tell a lot by looking at someone’s shoes you know. My mother taught me that. A real give away.

All this thinking has made me thirsty; must be time for a cuppa. Then perhaps I should think about writing some Christmas cards. When’s the last posting date? This will be the last year I use stamps with the Queen’s profile on them, I think. Oh my, how we’ll miss her. That was the saddest thing that’s happened this year. She’ll leave a big gap in our lives, even though I never met her. I can’t imagine tuning in to hear The King’s Speech on Christmas Day. Someone told me that’s a film. Either way, Viv and I will be glued to it at 3pm as usual, armed with a glass of sherry just before we tuck in to lunch.

I’ll give her a box of Black Magic chocolates and she’ll probably give me a book she’s found in one of her charity shop excursions. We’re creatures of habit, us. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy carols too. I listen to the lessons and carols from King’s College, Cambridge on the radio. That’s my tradition. It’s beautiful; sung from the heart. It’s always uplifting; gets me in the Christmas mood. We could all do with some light and hope couldn’t we? I like to think we’d all have room for Jesus in our suburban inns if He came calling. Some say it’s a fairy tale, but I don’t think so. Without truth and forgiveness where would we be? I love that Christmassy name too: Emmanuel - God with us. That’s such a comfort, in dark days and bright. I’m not sure how many Christmases I have left, truth to tell, but I do plan to enjoy this one. I hope you do too. Happy Christmas!

Jenny Sanders is a writer, speaker, encourager and mentor. She loves writing, reading and walking in nature whenever she can. For the past several years she’s lived between the beautiful cities of Bath, UK and Cape Town, S Africa. Her exciting and humorous new children’s book The Magnificent Moustache and Other Stories is now available published by The Conrad Press.