Christmas down through the ages!
“Dear Santy, I’ve finally decided what I want for Christmas. You can cancel my previous requests. Forget the jewellery, the Sliderobes, and even the new body! I’ll settle instead for a butler, my own personal butler. A George Clooney lookalike would suit just fine, visible to me alone. He needn’t tend to my husband’s needs at all, nor my three teenagers, just mine. He needn’t cook nor clean nor wash. All he need do, Santy, is stand and smile at me, care about how I feel and assist me cheerfully with my chores. Rush me my butler, Jean.”
I found this letter lately and it reminded me of how frustrated I felt when my children were in their teens. It was the only time in my life that I didn’t enjoy Christmas.
I love Christmas usually. I always have. I love everything about it. Maybe it’s because deep inside me, somewhere, is the little girl I used to be - thrilled with the magic of it all.
Christmas is different depending on your age.
FROM FOUR TO FOURTEEN: This was a wonderful time in my life. We had the happiest of Christmases, with great excitement and magic. Anticipation, for the weeks beforehand, was as good as realisation.
How great it was to have lots of brothers and sisters to share all the excitement with. “Is he coming yet?” “Go to sleep!” “Has he come?” “Go to sleep!” “I can’t.” “Is he out there now in the sky?” “GO TO SLEEP.” “Are you awake, Mary?” “MARY?” “Oh Lord, what’s that noise in the roof?” “Is anyone awake, anyone?”
Christmas Morning. “Get up, it’s Christmas!” Early Mass, cold crisp air, other Masses going on at side altars, visit the beautiful crib, Baby Jesus born, home for breakfast.
Then, and only then, being allowed enter the sitting room, where we saw the decorated Christmas tree for the first time and where our presents lay. How sad to be an only child on that precious morning! “Look, look what I got.” Look what I got.” “Look, look, look”. Delight all around. And then the rush to the kitchen to show Mammy and Daddy the wonderful presents that Santy had brought us.
FROM FOURTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR: I was in a different frame of mind altogether during these years. I wanted new clothes and I wanted to go to dances. I wanted to be thin and interesting, instead of being fat and dull. I wanted an exciting boyfriend who might bring me to faraway places like Roseland, in Moate.
I wanted, wanted, wanted - and didn’t even know what I wanted.
The dance on St Stephen’s night was the social highlight of the year, back then. We’d meet neighbours, home from England for Christmas, dressed in the very latest fashion. We wore our new Christmas clothes. The air would be buzzing with excitement and anticipation.
There are certain songs that take me right back to the early hops we went to, as teenagers - songs like ‘Sugar Sugar,’ ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising.’ Whenever I hear these I am young again. I can close my eyes and feel the thrill, the longing and the hope that here tonight I might meet my ‘Mr Wonderful.’
FROM TWENTY-FOUR TO FORTY: During these years I was married with three children. I was also teaching big classes of young children. We didn’t get our holidays until the day before Christmas Eve. I used to be absolutely exhausted!
However, I loved seeing my little children enjoy Christmas as much I had, as a child. I enjoyed it through their eyes, all over again. In particular I remember Christmas Eve night, when my three little children would be asleep in their bed, all excited, waiting for Santy. The beautiful tree, with their presents under it, stood in our sitting room. Everything was ready. I used to sit looking at this wonderful sight and say a silent prayer to God, thanking Him for being able to provide all this for my children.
The work involved in ‘preparing’ Christmas made me appreciate all the work my own mother had done, in the past, to make her ten children’s Christmases so special.
FROM FORTY TO FIFTY: These were the tough years when my beautiful biddable little children became self-centred teenagers, ‘finding themselves.’ In spite of several pleas for help none was forth coming. “Get up,” I shout from the bottom of the stairs. “Come down and help me. Come down and pick up the dishes and mugs all over the place.” They had far too much on their minds to be bothered with such menial tasks. When they eventually arose they headed straight out the door to meet their friends uptown. When they went to discos at night I couldn’t sleep a wink until they returned safely. How I envied my husband snoring away beside me!
It was during those years that I wrote the letter to Santy asking for a handsome butler, who would ‘care about how I feel and assist me cheerfully with my chores.’
CHRISTMASES NOW AS A GRANNY: Well, I never got my butler. And it doesn’t matter anymore, for my teenagers have grown up. They have become wonderful responsible adults whom I am proud of.
Having taught young children for 40 years I am retired now and enjoying these years very much.
We are blessed to have our three adult children living in Ireland. They visit us over Christmas.
One of my daughters and her family always come to us for Christmas week. It’s wonderful to have Santy visiting our house again. I love my grandchildren very much. Everybody helps with the work involved.
And can I confess that I almost took pleasure from the following. I heard my daughter, standing at the bottom of our stairs this year, pleading, “Get up. Come down and pick up the mugs and all your stuff.” Her pre-teens never stirred in their beds.
Life goes full circle indeed!
• Jean Farrell is a columnist with the Westmeath Independent and playwright.
This special piece was published in our festive publication, Christmas Cheer, which is out now.