Stories for Christmas

Stories s a m t s i r h C r o f

CONTENT 2 3 4 7 8

Table of

Christmas long ago Marian Neary Burke

Two photographs Ann Goucher

The Christmas of 66 Tony Carroll

The Trifle Dolores Judge

Simple Christmas Patricia Jacob

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11 14 15

The Elf is in Trouble Patricia McParland

Bah, Humbug and all that stuff Michael Morris

Gravy Denise Mulholland

How does Santa do it?

Eleanor McQuinn

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Pulling the Sinews Brian McKeown

18

Christmas Garlands Rita O'Regan

21

Zippy Zither Patricia McParland

22 26

Christmas in Monard Christine O'Flynn

Mam's Christmas cake Mary McCarthy

29 30 31 33

Sultana Pudding Mary McCarthy

The Doll with the Purple Hair Catherine Conway

The Doll's House

Christmas Morning Eithne de Lacy

The trees are standing proudly in the windows of our sitting rooms, glowing and glittering with lights and decorations, we light our tall candles and listen to Christmas carols. This year is ending, this year which has transformed our daily lives, has brought us so much heartbreak and worry, and changes that could never have been imagined. It has also shown us the value of community and relationships, the pleasure and joy of small things, and the beauty of nature.

For Silver Thread, this year has also brought profound loss and grief when our friend and co-founder Carmel Conroy left us suddenly in June, after a short illness. Her absence leaves a gaping hole in our lives and in our hearts. She loved our work, she loved the workshops, the laughter, and most of all she loved the stories that all our writers, memory keepers and storytellers share with us.

This Christmas, in memory of her, we have gathered some of our favourite Christmas stories from our current Silver Thread writers.

So, from our families to yours, in memory of Christmases past and in hopeful anticipation of Christmases future, we wish you a happy and peaceful Christmas, and a bright and hopeful New Year.

Enjoy these stories for Christmas, and share them widely.

Cathy

Cathy.fowley@silverthread.ie

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Christmas Long Ago (For Josephine) Marian Neary Burke Remember we used to sneak down before dawn, Jump out of bed no time to yawn, To see if Santa had come in the night, When I said he’s still down there, you jumped with a fright.

Our stockings were hand-knitted, which we wore every day, Not like the fancy ones they have today, But they were special, as we look back on the years Dolls Thinking of loved ones, often with tears.

Marietta biscuits around the ashed fire, Shivering with cold or was it desire?

The squeak of a doll, a shot from a gun, Snakes and Ladders open, the games had begun.

Mammy says “back to ye’re beds” Teddy’s and dolls close to our heads.

Sometimes too close wasn’t always right, Things often got broken that very first night.

and teddies,paints and bricks, Do you remember Tiddly Winks?

Do you remember the cots Daddy made?

In them our dolls beautifully laid, Covered with blankets, which Mammy had sewn, From old dresses, we know now were her own.

Wind-up aeroplanes, Meccano and Draughts Ludo and ring-boards, “double tops” on the Darts.

Dolls and teddies paints and bricks, Do you remember Tiddly Winks?

There’s so much to write, but I’ll leave it this time, Besides it’s not easy put those memories in rhyme.

But I’ve given you plenty to reminisce, So I’ll say Happy Christmas, dear sis. page 2

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M E M O R I E S O F S A N T A A N D C H R I S T M A S M O R N I N G A n n G o u c h e r

The first photograph was taken around 1960 outside McBirney's Department Store on Aston Quay in Dublin. There is a nice selection of accessories in the shop window...

On Christmas morning, my Dad used to play his record of Bing Crosbie singing White Christmas. The original record was an EP with four Christmas songs on it, including "White Christmas" and "God rest ye Merry Gentlemen" The record in the photograph is a present he got in the 1970s This cigarette box Christmas was used every Christmas.

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The Christmas of 66 Tony Carroll It was the worst Christmas we ever had. It started off well.

My mother opened the weekly Christmas savings account with Rogers grocery store in September to buy the dried fruit for the Christmas cake and pudding. These were made to my grandmother’s special recipe and never failed to deliver on taste, no matter how sparse the fruit mix.

However, on this occasion, my sister had started working in a posh solicitor’s office on the south side and one of her colleagues had given her a Christmas cake recipe which she was anxious to try out. My mother reluctantly released the treasury of dried fruit into her care. Weighed down by the bags of tradition in each hand, my sister set off on the bus, anxious to demonstrate our wealth and her cookery skills to her new best friend. In due course the cake, resplendent in its livery of stippled icing, dancing Santas and beaded constellations, took centre stage in the dining room.

After the fruit, the next biggest purchase was the turkey which could end up being a chicken if money was tight. With my sister now working that wasn't going to be a problem. I remember accompanying my mother to the butcher's shop as she proudly put down the deposit for an twelve pounder, the largest we ever had.

The final major purchase was tins of biscuits which came from the North of Ireland. These were also procured incrementally over several months and were smuggled into the South by my father and his black Protestant railway colleagues in Belfast. They weren't the ordinary run-of-the-mill boring biscuit variety which were doing the rounds in Dublin. These were posh Victoria assortment which could not be purchased in the Ireland of the sixties and were presented to favoured relatives and friends.

All was set for the perfect Christmas. Well that’s until my poor mother started to bring it all together on Christmas Eve.

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The first problem was the turkey. My father was a terrible man for the drink around Christmas, nevertheless she asked him to collect it from the butchers. When he staggered into the kitchen with the naked bird under his arm, the head was still attached. Anxious to get back into my mother’s good books he quickly set about using the front door as a weapon of decapitation. By the time he was finished, the recently painted hallway resembled an abattoir. Worse still, the door wouldn’t close and remained ajar for the entire Christmas.

The winds of despair were also certainly present when my mother decided she’d like a slice of Christmas cake. We watched helplessly as she struggled to make the first incision into the dense icing. Like a surgeon trying to penetrate a stubborn tumour she had to change knives several times. When she eventually broke through, a vast yellow harvest appeared before us. The southside recipe had sunk my mother’s treasured fruit into the depths of Antarctica.

I must confess my own unwelcome contribution to the disastrous Christmas of 66. The northern biscuits as they were called, were lovingly wrapped and stored under my bed because it was supposed to be the driest part of the house.

As my father did the rounds to the important relatives the Airfix boxes and Tintin magazines were pushed aside and the biscuits carefully retrieved. There was a rogue tin which had not been wrapped. I was to learn afterwards that it was for my father’s wayward sister whom he always visited on the feast of Little Christmas to mark the start of her New Year’s pledge to sobriety.

Temptation is a terrible thing when you’re a teenager with little to occupy you over the Christmas. I needed comforting and who better to provide it than Queen Victoria. It was a rocky start with the custard creams but once I became acquainted with the chocolate digestives there was no going back.

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Little Christmas did come round and so did my mother looking for the biscuits. I was ready.

The Queen’s family, which had given me so much solace, had been replaced by their Irish cousins - the inferior ginger snaps and jaw breaking arrowroots.

Admittedly they weren’t the best of fits for the specially commissioned bubble craters and pods but once the lid was firmly secured nobody was any the wiser that the Royal Seal of approval had been broken.

The winds of despair were also certainly present when my mother decided she’d like a slice of Christmas cake.

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Simple Christmas Patricia Jacob Christmas preparations in our house started around mid-December. The puddings and cake were first to be done. Each of us took turns to mix the puddings as this was for luck and a good year to follow. I came from an alcohol-free household, so we thought that it was great when two bottles of stout were purchased. We remembered the smell from the previous year. The puddings were boiled in muslin for hours but I never forget the taste. I still make puddings each year. The cake was always nicely decorated with real almond and white icing made from egg whites and sugar.

The same decorations came out from year to year: paper chains made from different coloured paper which tore so easily that there was always need for sticky tape. They went from corner to corner and dipped in the middle under the light. The tree was not as important then, and I can’t remember if we had one every year.

Toys and presents were bought quietly behind the scene and hidden away. They were all bought locally – there was very little transport to travel to larger towns. I can remember dolls, one which was a rag doll whom I named her Sputnik, so it must have been 1957 or 58 when I was only 3. I remember lorries and cars, and a particular transporter which I think the girls got. Our needs and wants were very little; we were happy with anything.

The food shop included the turkey, ham and lemonade as we called it then. It was probably the only time in the year we had lemonade. The few bottles were put in the attic using the trap door so there was no chance we would drink it before the 25th. The turkey was left hanging on the back doorknob outside to keep cold for the night. The ham was cooked on Christmas Eve before we went to late mass. Candles were lit in all our windows until we left for mass to keep the spirits away. The local brass and reed band paraded up town after mass so we all marched behind them to the centre of the town, flagged by 4 men carrying balls of fire.

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We couldn’t wait to get home to bed and snuggle under the blankets for our surprises the next day.

We always had a family day: we lit an extra fire in one of the bedrooms and moved the beds together and used it like a living room for the day.

We had a mid-day dinner with all the trimmings and eventually got to open the lemonade.

Mid-afternoon, our parents always had a present for us. It was always a comic annual which we treasured.

We all went to bed happy and tired and ready to face the next day.

Candles were lit in all our windows until we left for mass to keep the spirits away.

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The Elf is in Trouble Patricia McParland He's only been here a few days, sitting happily with his back against the chimney of the stove but I don't think he's gonna make it.

He looks shocked and that's because he's already familiar with most of the floor and many of the corners in this house.

He has travelled at high speed, feet barely touching the floor. He has cowered in corners, thinking himself safe only to start on another speed chase across the kitchen!

He looks shocked and that's because he's already familiar with most of the floor and many of the corners in this house.

I can't believe he's still smiling even after a frontal lobotomy was deemed necessary and the removal of an ear such resilience in one so young.

The pictures tell the story.

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Bah, Humbug and all that stuff Michael Morris Dickens got it right, but only in a perverse sort of way. In A Christmas Carol he showed Ebenezer Scrooge the right way to live his life. He used the wonderful concoctions of Christmas Past, Present and Future to demonstrate to Scrooge — and anyone who was reading — that misery has no friends and generosity has its own rewards. He also showed up the society he lived in for what it was — a grasping greedy society with no time for the poor or needy and a hunger for wealth. Sounds familiar!

But Dickens — who was no slouch for neglecting his own family — wrote about goodness and the need to be kind to others. He terrified us with visions of the future and forced many to rethink their way of living.

We don’t need strange ghosts to show us the way, we carry our own with us, all our lives.

My past, if we confine it to Christmases, was probably a little unusual.

For one thing, I never had a Christmas Day in my own home, from when I was a child to the time after I got married, and even after I was widowed.

Some record — in my seventies and yet to raise a glass of Christmas cheer on Christmas Day in my abode.

My earliest memory and resentment was being dragged by the wrist down Moore Street on Christmas Eve. My mother loved the last-minute bargains to be had after five o’clock on that day. No presents were bought (though I suspect Santa’s gifts were sorted) and we went from stall to shop to stall with my mother grabbing this, that and the other and muttering “That’ll do them! That’ll do them!” The next day we went to my Grandma’s house with an armful of presents (half-price) all nicely wrapped in brown paper that my dad acquired in his workplace, the Educational Company.

Turkey was never on the menu. It was never heard of, until much later in my life. Roast chicken, a small piece of ham and cabbage and potatoes — a great dinner, followed by jelly and ice-cream. Not many of us were in the Bob Cratchit category, but those who were tried to keep the best side out. I did well getting a toy and an Annual, but most children were lucky to get a toy pistol, which was usually broken within a day. page 11

When we moved from town to Finglas the last-minute shopping stopped for me, although maybe not for my mother, and we dined in her sister’s house, three doors down. St Stephen’s Day was reserved for my mother.

She did all the cooking then and we got multi-layered trifle for dessert.

The men usually disappeared to the pub and came rolling back later. This gave me time to play with my toys and meet the cousins.

My favourite ‘toy’ was not a toy at all but a couple of Annuals of my top comics. At first it was the Beano and the Dandy, and then the Topper was added on, along with the Hotspur and Rover as I got older. I could follow the Christmas adventures of Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace, and get full-length stories of The Tough of the Track and Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School.

Christmas was also marked by marathon dress-making sessions by my mother and her sister. All done on the pulled-out dining-room table.

They would stay up till four or five in the morning, cutting out patterns, pinning and piecing the bits together until finally they would complete the outfits for themselves and all the nieces. And not a penny would change hands. That was their charity work for Christmas — and all the year round as well.

When I grew up and got married, I reckoned that my home was my castle and I wouldn’t move from it on Christmas Day. I reckoned wrong. After a bit of negotiating we arrived at a conclusion — Sue and I would go to her mother’s for Christmas Day and to my mother’s for St Stephen’s Day. I mistakenly thought it was just for one year, but the tradition was established in the first year and etched into the Christmas pudding.

Those Christmases were one long party. After our breakfast we would pile the presents and ourselves into the car and head for Ballyfermot. The dinner — and there was always turkey and ham and the dreaded Brussel sprouts — was served in the late afternoon and I went on my merry way afterwards keeping up my tradition of visiting family and friends.

Naturally I had to take a drink from each one of them and because it was the old days it was quite safe to drink and drive, or so I thought. I had about ten houses to drop into, spread across the city from Phibsboro to page 12

Cabra to Finglas, and all pushing the pudding and the porter into me, not to mention the odd brandy. I was quite merry when I arrived back to my mother-in-law’s and proceeded to have a few more. For many Christmases this resulted in my retiring to the couch in the parlour to sleep it off. But I was a quiet drunk, that’s all that mattered.

When my son arrived and was old enough to bring with me I decided that one or two drinks were enough, and two or three houses enough to visit.

Funnily enough, I still topped it up back in Ballyfermot when I had my son safely in bed, and I still managed to fall asleep in the front room before two in the morning.

Those were the halcyon day, until I was left alone in life. I still got invited to Ballyfermot — for a couple of years anyway, until my son married and his house became the focal point of Christmas.

On Christmas now the ghosts of Christmas Past visit me every year and delight me. I think of the merriment at the Christmas hooley, the lovely dinners, but most of all the real ghosts, those who have left us.

And I raise a glass in good cheer to the joy that they brought me.

My earliest memory and resentment was being dragged by the wrist down Moore Street on Christmas Eve. My mother loved the lastminute bargains to be had after five o’clock on that day.

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How does Santa do it?

Eleanor McQuinn When Cormac, my first child, began to understand about Santa and started to look forward to his coming, I wanted to recreate memories of my own childhood, of waking up on Christmas morning and feeling for the lumpy stocking at the end of the bed. So Santa found his way to Cormac’s room and deposited the hoped-for gifts in time-honoured fashion. Next morning as the presents were opened with shaking hands we knew that he had worked his magic once more.

From the beginning he always brought plenty of small stocking-shaped toys, including some surprises, plus a special larger toy which had been specifically requested. This continued as Aoife and Eoghan arrived and then I think he must have been having a really bad night one year because he disturbed the children as he was leaving. We weren’t at all pleased and decided that next time he would just have to leave the toys in the sitting room. So now Eoghan and Siomha leave the empty stockings in a designated corner of a sofa or armchair with name tags attached so that Santa doesn’t get mixed up.

I don’t know how happy he is with this arrangement. While he always left biscuit crumbs lying around, now he knocks over the fire guard and puts big sooty footprints on the fireplace and Rudolph leaves half eaten carrots on the carpet – Yuch! We’re certainly not happy with this or with the fact that lately the number of big toys have increased, resulting in enough wrapping paper and packaging accumulating on Christmas morning to fill our recycling bin in one go.

However since Santa doesn’t come to you once you start secondary school he will only have one stocking to fill next year. This means that then we will have three people to find presents for.

How does he do it? No wonder he gives up coming to them as they get older. It gets harder and harder to think of those special gifts. Anyway I hope he continues to go to as much trouble to find presents that will fit in that stocking and that we as a family continue to enjoy that special Santa magic for at least six more years.

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Pulling the Sinews Brian McKeown Our Christmas dinner was very much along traditional lines, turkey, ham, Brussel sprouts, stuffing etc. The turkey was prepared on Christmas Eve, ready for cooking on Christmas Day. Part of the preparation involved the pulling of the sinews, well at least an attempt to pull the sinews. This involved cutting the skin just below the fleshy part of the leg to expose the sinews. The handle of a wooden spoon was then forced in behind them.

I can still picture the next part, a tug-of-war with my mother holding the turkey and pulling in one direction, and me with the wooden spoon grasped with both hands, pulling in the opposite direction.

This was not a gentle operation as even with full commitment on both sides, which was always given, a successful extraction of the sinew was not guaranteed.

I can’t recall how many sinews there were in each leg but it seemed to be a lot, so after a success the operation was repeated. I do not remember the turkey ever being dropped or the wooden spoon breaking but both were always a possibility.

At some stage my mother decided that as it was so easy to remove the meat from the sinews when the meat was cooked that whoever got the drumstick could deal with the sinews and the tug-of-war was dropped as part of the Christmas Eve tradition.

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Christmas Garlands Rita O'Regan I must have been about eight when Mammy taught me how to use the sewing machine. We were getting ready for Christmas, and of course we needed to decorate our house before the arrival of Santa Claus, not forgetting of course the arrival once more of the baby Jesus.

She bought rolls of crepe paper - the choice of colours was very limited - but red, green and white would take priority, and there might be some yellow left over from Easter time. If there was any black paper, it would be used for the crib for the Holy Family and the baby Jesus, and we’d make a stable from an old box and wrap and stick the crepe paper on it.

It was a messy business, and the glue would stick to your fingers, and then the ink from the black paper would stick to the glue on your fingers, and then you might want to brush away your hair from your eyes…

And then, the glue would take ages to dry!

Mammy would use a big scissors and cut 3” strips across the long rolls.

We - my sister and brother - would match up the different coloured strips and put one on top of the other. Mammy would have cleared a space on the kitchen table to make room for her Singer sewing machine, and she would set up a long stitch on the machine with whatever thread she had; the thread colour didn't matter - in fact, the brighter, the better! She showed me how to use the machine and let me practice stitching in a straight line all the way down the centre of the long strips. It's funny how the ends of those strips never lined up and one piece would be always longer than the other.

Mammy showed us how to put a knot in the loose thread-ends and we all helped to gently stretch the edges of the crepe paper without tearing it.

Then she carefully pulled the threads to loosely gather up the long strip, twist the whole thing around, et voila…a multi-coloured garland!

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We’d make enough garlands to drape around the walls of the rooms, using tacks to stick into the plaster or layers of wallpaper, and if the ceiling was too high, there was the picture rail which we could reach if we stood up on a chair. At the corners we’d stick in a couple of balloons and hoped they’d stay there until Christmas was over. Sometimes they’d work themselves loose, and float down off the wall, and we’d have great fun punching them at each other before they’d finally burst with a big bang!

We always tried to hang the garlands from the corners of the room into the centre at the light fitting, but mammy wouldn't allow us - I think she was afraid we’d stick a tack into a wire and blow a fuse, or worse still, electrocute ourselves!

Some of our friends and neighbours had very fancy decorations bought in Hector Gray’s, decorations they would keep from one year to the next: garland that would concertina together and when opened out would be silver on one side and bright red, green, blue, yellow and sometimes pink on the other side. And they had big silver stars made from shiny paper, and they’d be like stars twinkling in the sky on a clear frosty night.

Hector Gray’s, now there’s a name to remember! Hector's shop was in Liffey Street, and if you needed any toys, decorations, lamp shades, bulbs, kettles, cups and saucers, pots and pans - you name it - his was the shop to go to. Hector was always in his shop, and at Christmastime he’d have all sorts of novelties, tinsel, and decorations in bright shiny colours, silver and gold and as sparkly and as gaudy as you wanted. These would all come to our little island from far off exotic-sounding places like China, India and Taiwan.

If Hector Gray didn’t have what you wanted, the stall holders in Moore Street and Henry Street were next on the list. This is where you'd find your “Cheeky Charlies” and hear “Get the last e’ yer jumpin’ monkeys”.

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When Christmas was over, and it was a New Year, and we were back in school and it was the Epiphany on the 6th of January, that was when the decorations had to be taken down and put away for another year.

If the balloons still had some air in them, we’d have a play around with them until they were all burst.

We’d roll up the garlands, but invariably some would have got damaged, so we always needed to make more the following year, but always hoping that maybe, just maybe, we could make a special trip into town to visit Hector Gray’s.

Hector was always in his shop, and at Christmastime he’d have all sorts of novelties, tinsel, and decorations in bright shiny colours, silver and gold and as sparkly and as gaudy as you wanted.

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Zippy Zithers Patricia McParland My sister was always first down the stairs, to check if Santa had been.

It was usually around 6am.

She would creep carefully, one step at a time, glancing back at the rest of us peeking our heads around the landing, while mammy and daddy slept on. In the darkness she approached the living room door and gently pushed it open, disappearing inside.

We waited and waited.

"Why's she taking so long?" I wondered, and then I heard her footsteps coming back up - "He's been, the presents are here, come on!" We all rushed down the stairs and into the room. The chairs from the table sat near the tree, four of them, each one holding presents for the four children- Patricia, Siobhan, Arthur and Joanne; our names written on top of the presents. Nothing was wrapped so we were quickly able to get down to the business of playing. I don't remember much about who got what except that my sister had this amazing zippy zither that I so wanted. It was a kind of small wooden instrument with wire strings, like a flat harp.

I don't remember being upset, there were lots of things to play with and soon my mum and dad were downstairs too and the excitement rose as we showed them everything that Santa had brought.

Like parents across the world they made all the right surprised noises and joined in with the laughter and excitement but then my mum asked my sister if she was sure the zippy zither had been on her chair? My sister looked at her and said, "yes, it’s mine". My mum looked at my dad. They tried again a few times asking the same question in different ways and eventually made up some story that is still vague to me, about Santa having told them that the zippy zither was for Patricia and that he must have accidentally put it on the wrong chair. There were tears for one sister and delight for the other.

So now I knew why Siobhan had taken so long checking if Santa had been. page 21

Christmas in Monard Christine O'Flynn Mam began her preparations in September when she checked each week to see if the new bags of dried fruit had appeared on the shop shelves yet.

They would be her signal to begin buying as many as she could afford every week. She always suspected shopkeepers would put the prices up coming up to Christmas. She usually had enough by mid-October when the real work of making the three or four cakes and puddings for family and friends began. My favourite time was when each of those cakes began to bake or the puddings were boiling for an hour or so and this spicey, mouthwatering aroma seeped all over the house. It was in the bedrooms when going to bed and still lurked in the chilly kitchen the following morning. It even made the compulsory breakfast porridge taste slightly exotic for a while. The cakes lay shrouded in grease proof paper until the middle of December, apart from when they were unwrapped every few weeks to be stabbed with her special knitting needle and sprinkled with Paddy whiskey.

As far as Tom and I were concerned, the almond paste was the most important part of the cake. Mam was always very generous with this and each cake had a thick layer to go under the white icing. We watched greedily as she mixed this, always adding a nice glass of Paddy to this too.

After she had covered the top and sides of each cake with apricot jam, the paste was rolled out and laid carefully on the top of the cake, then trimmed to size. The side pieces she rolled around her rolling pin and, to our constant amazement could attach them to the paste on top and to the sides - they never fell off. They were trimmed to size and then - what we had been waiting for - we got the trimmings...

In Monard, there were always seedling fir trees in the woods and each year I went with Dad to help him pick out a nice little tree, no more than three feet high. Our house was very small and the only place for our tree was just inside the kitchen door, in a corner that only held Mam and Dad’s wedding blessing on one wall and a picture of the Sacred Heart on the other. That’s where Mam put her little card table, covered with Christmas paper, and where our little tree sat for Christmas. We had candle-holders, shaped like the oyster shells, often used for ashtrays at the page 22

time. These had little clips on them and they clipped onto the ends of the branches. Tiny red candles went into the holders. Silver tinsel dripped from the branches and a yellow star, made by Tom, sat on top. We loved our tree though I often wonder now how the whole thing didn’t go up in flames. Later, we had a bracket put in under the Sacred Heart and this held a red bulb with a cross on it. At Christmas, our new string of coloured lights was plugged into this and our house became a lot safer.

Under the tree on the table, our little crib figures were arranged lovingly.

These were white plaster when bought, but Tom got out his poster paints and we spent a day deciding on the colours for the wardrobe of Jesus, Mary,Joseph, the shepherds and the kings. We also had a black donkey, white sheep and a nice brown cow.

These same figures, repainted twice in all those years, are set up in a little stable made by Pierce in our dining-room every year still. Sadly, the donkey is now minus an ear, one of the shepherds has a crooked neck and a king’s head falls off regularly after he arrives on the 6th January, but apart from that, they have weathered seventy or so years remarkably well.

The Fullers, a lovely family, lived on the way to our bus stop; Mrs. Fuller, Tom her son, Maura and Kitty her daughters and Maggie, Mrs. Fuller’s sister-in-law. Tom worked as a helper for my Dad for a few years. Maura was at home and helped Mam out sometimes, coming down to our house on the mornings when Mam wanted to go to town early. Maura got me dressed and fed and then she loaded me into the basket of her bike and cycled up to her house where she minded me until Mam picked me up on her way home. I loved those days. They always had a roaring fire in the kitchen, with fuel collected by Maggie. She went out every day, wearing an old raincoat and a pair of boots, into the fields around, where furze bushes grew abundantly. Farmers often set fire to them which turned them black and killed the growth but they made great fuel. Maggie gathered a big bundle of these, tied them with a belt with a buckle, then put the the belt over her shoulder and she carried them home for the fire.

She had an unfortunate habit of talking out loud to herself, so when I was older, as I passed her and said hello, I could her saying “that was young Christine Hayes now, she’s got very big. I nearly didn’t know her” fading

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into the distance after she passed. If she met someone she didn’t like, they often heard some unpleasant comments about themselves - but this was Maggie. When I got too big for Maura’s basket and started school, every Christmas until I got married, I had to call to the house. I was brought into the sitting room where a big fire was blazing and tea and a plate of biscuits were brought in to me. We chatted for a while and I always left with a big box of chocolates.

Then, there was the year I nearly saw Santy. Dad called me to come out quickly, “Santy is just passing over the trees on his way home”. I ran but just as I got to Dad, he said “you just barely missed him”. I asked a dozen questions and he had an answer to each - he must have seen him. By the time I went back to school in January, I HAD seen Santy and I silenced a few doubters in my class with my first-hand description of Santy, his reindeers and red sleigh, vanishing over the tall tree on the right-hand side of the group of trees in front of our house.

We didn’t have a car and there were no buses on Christmas Day, so we always got car from Jerry O’Connor, our friendly undertaker who supplied cars to most families in the Mills for christenings, marriages and funerals and to bring us to mass on Christmas Day. I loved these big cars, there were always little pull-down seats attached to the back of the front seats. It was luxury indeed to get out of this big car and go in home to our presents and a lovely fry-up for breakfast.

I always considered myself lucky as my birthday fell on Christmas Eve. I’m not really sure how they did it, but Mam and Dad always had separate presents for me for the two days, plus a lovely birthday cake. Santy always had a slice of this to go with his bottle of Murphy’s Stout when he called that night. In my stocking every year were bright, shiny pennies with the hen and chickens on them, one for each year. I loved these ‘new’ pennies as I thought they were. I asked Mam years later and she told me the secret - she pushed each one into a big potato and that cleaned them up to look good as new again.

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In the stocking, there were always boxes of paints and colouring books, usually a plastic bird that you filled with water and the bird whistled when you blew through the little tube. A small dulcimer with little timber hammer was a regular too.

One year, after a lot of hints but little hope that my wish would come true, I got a little green bicycle, nicer than any bike I had ever seen.

We always got car from Jerry O’Connor, our friendly undertaker who supplied cars to most families in the Mills for christenings, marriages and funerals and to bring us to mass on Christmas Day.

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Mam's Christmas Cake Mary McCarthy My Mam trained as a Domestic Science Teacher, but shelved her teaching career when she married my Dad, a farmer. However, she didn’t hang up her apron on becoming a farmer’s wife. Instead, her culinary and baking skills were transferred to the farm kitchen, with both family and farmhands enjoying Michelin star cuisine every single day of the year.

Her specialty was afternoon tea, when the men would down tools at three o'clock, drawn in by the wafts of baking emanating from the kitchen.

They sat down to servings of the most delicious scones, apple tarts, cakes, pastry horns and many more delectable delights. Fancy cookbooks did not adorn our shelves. If she was ever unsure of quantities, she referred to a large hardback manuscript, which was her bible compiled throughout her four years training.

The Aga cooker was the workhorse of our kitchen. The cursed Aga cooker. It was the life source of our farm, but when it took a vagary, it could be a beast. It kept the house warm, saw to all the needs of preparing food for animals and humans and it even became an incubator for newborn abandoned lambs or pigs when life needed to be breathed back into them on a cold wet winter’s night. The baby animal was placed in a cardboard box on a bed of straw and placed in the coolest oven with the door left open. By morning, a bright little lamb or piglet would stagger around the kitchen bleating or squealing for attention. We children were always thrilled with the A & E aspect of our kitchen, with the animal invariably becoming a pet.

The cast iron cooker spanned one wall of the kitchen. It had two very large plates on top, one hot for boiling pots and the other for simmering and a metal plate to the side, which was used for keeping things warm and even aired all our clothes. There were four large ovens ranging from very hot to barely warm.

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It was powered by anthracite twice a day to keep it going 24 hours, even in summer. The hot ashes were perilously taken across the kitchen and dumped out on the laneway, where they filled potholes. The large heavy and slender coal bucket was hoisted to the hotplate, where the bung was removed to allow the coals to enter and then everything was cleaned off with a wire brush. Windows and doors were left open to allow the fumes of the anthracite to escape. It was, however, the bane of my mother’s life as it huffed and puffed depending on the draw up the chimney and the quality of the anthracite. It was either blazing hot or stone cold. Lighting it again took huge effort.

It was under such conditions that Mam prepared for Christmas. Rich fruit cakes were baked and puddings were steamed, fogging up the windows for hours on end to our delight as we drew pictures on the panes of glass. When the temperature gauge indicated that this was going to be a ‘good’ oven day, she busied herself with the Christmas cake, without a weighing scales or an electric mixer in sight. All the senses were used to determine the mix and the end result. Firstly, the butter and sugar was placed in a large earthenware bowl and placed on the cool plate to soften, while she attended to other farm chores. My brothers and I knelt around the table watching the performance. With the strength of an ox she beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until it was fluffy and creamy.

Sometimes I helped her with this chore, but quickly abandoned it, as I didn’t have the patience to bring it to the correct texture. Adding the eggs and flour and finally all the fruit that had been carefully prepared, she put it in a tin that was lined with greaseproof paper on the inside and brown paper on the outside to prevent the outer rims of the cake burning. It was popped in one of the cooler ovens for about four hours.

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Then we fought over who would get the ‘lick’. The flavor of the uncooked mixture was delightful, giving us the taste and the promise of what was to come.

Mam wrapped a piece of string or twine around her finger to remind her to check on the progress of the cake. The aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger built up over the hours and the cake was done when one ‘smelled’ it.

I loved the way she baked by instinct. I particularly loved her lemon sultana pudding, which she steamed the day before Christmas. This easy and light pudding served with custard and cream was unrivalled in my view and the recipe is below, should you like to try it.

When the temperature gauge indicated that this was going to be a ‘good’ oven day, she busied herself with the Christmas cake, without a weighing scales or an electric mixer in sight.

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Sultana Pudding 4 ozs self raising flour 4 ozs breadcrumbs 4 ozs margarine Rind and juice 1 lemon Dash of candied peel 4 ozs brown sugar 2 eggs beaten 1 grated apple 8 ozs sultanas Little milk to mix to dropping consistency Method Take margarine and grate it or melt it.

Mix in everything else.

Place in a greased pudding bowl and steam for 1½ hours.

You can multiply the ingredients for a larger pudding – just the flour, margarine, sugar and breadcrumbs. page 29

The Doll with the Purple Hair Catherine Conway

It’s 1964. Christmas Day, and the three if us are queueing outside the front room. I am sick with the excitement and Daddy is teasing us with the big key. “It won’t work”, he says several times and he keeps laughing, softly. This room and the bathroom upstairs are the only doors that have keys. He pretends to mix them up.

I’m first in the queue as I’m the eldest, then Therese and finally, Michael who’s only three and a half. I’m nearly seven.

The door opens slowly. I rush in and straight to my armchair where I see all the presents Santy left for me. I can’t believe my eyes. In my letter to Santy I asked for a doll’s pram and a surprise.

Sitting in the pram is a baby doll with purple hair! I pick her up and hug her tight. I’m so happy. I look around and my sister has the same doll. I can’t believe there are two of them. Their hair is a light purple, short and curly. Mammy says they’re twins!

I often think about that particular Christmas. I love the unusual and nobody else I know ever got the same doll. It truly surprised me.

I loved that doll for the next few years until my brother learnt how to use scissors and test them out on my doll’s hair. She was never the same after that.

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The Doll's House I am five—Santa has been.

I am so excited.

I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t know I wanted it.

Now I want It. It’s a beautiful big doll’s house. It has an upstairs and a downstairs. The front opens wide like cupboard doors. The windows are real, I can peep inside through the glass, they have curtains too.

My teeny-weeny dolls and my baby boy/girl twins can go into all the rooms. The babies were there, asleep in the cots, when I opened the house. There is a mummy and daddy too. Now they go up the stairs hup hup hup or they can drop straight in when I take the red tiled roof off.

My favourite thing is the toilet. My dolls don’t really sit down on the toilet, they are not bendy enough. Instead, I like to take out the toilet and spend time playing with the lid. Flipping it open and close, close and open, over and over; it’s fascinating; it’s pink like the bath. The bath becomes really excellent on the days when I sneak out to our own bathroom sink tap, stretch in with both handies, and dribble in water right up to the very top.

I carry the tiny pink bath back with me to my own house, making sure mummy can’t see me in the hall walking with water on the carpet. I get back safely walking on tiptoes, walking slow slow so as not to spill a drop, then bit by bit slide it into place. My little bath sloshes water onto the floor but I can get that off myself, rub with my finger and lick it off. Now I pop my babies in for a nice warm bath – Jimmy after my uncle (a twin too), and little Josephine after my best friend at school.

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Baby Josephine is a bit sick, so I wash her gently. I have no towel, but I have a bit of toilet paper.

Then off to bed, in their pink and blue cots, tuck them in, listen to the story. Kiss good night. Turn out the light. They are asleep in no time.

There are lights in my dolly’s house, I can switch them on and off, another game I call on and off on and off switch on and off There’s a secret battery somewhere, like our torch. Sometimes the light stops working and Dad fixes it.

The carpets in my house, a red one and a blue one and a green one, are very flat and soft, nice to stroke, not like the scratchy tufty ones at home.

Now I know the real love and attention to detail in that beautiful never forgotten house. Time spent cutting felt to exactly fit the floors. The house did not come fully furnished, so furniture was chosen and set into exactly the right positions. A cooker and a table with chairs ready for their dinners. I think tiny cutlery too – I still have the sensation of a teacup on my pinkie fitting perfectly. A bed for the parents with tiny sheets and pillows. The two identical cots. Where was the lovely family that lived there found? How long did the search take? A nice loving good family. It was all made ready for the dolls to play and live out their tender lives.

Now I know it wasn’t Santa who gave me this wonderous life-long gift, but someone else.

Catherine

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Christmas Morning Eithne de Lacy

A blackbird sings His predawn solo, A merl choir Hastens to harmonise.

Perhaps they remember The cut apples strewn On a springtime lawn.

A festive ‘thank you’, A Christ child gift.

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MEMORIES Toys, oranges, and if you were very lucky, a beautiful doll became yours at Christmas.

Porcelain dolls, or perfect little girls on Christmas cards? Did you wirte or get Christmas cards?

Many of our Christmas stories feature the turkey and some even have Brussel sprouts... The smells of Christmas waft through our stories and memories.

Santa is the man of the day, the night and the hour. Some remember hearing him, sometimes even have a hazy memory of seeing him, in the sitting room or outside, flying away to the next house.

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C O P Y R I G H T Copyright Silver Thead 2020. Copyright for each story remains with the author.

CONTACT cathy.fowley@silverthread.ie www.silverthread.ie