GHOSTS OF PAST CHRISTMASES.....

It would be true to say that I never feel full of the joys of Spring in the lead up to Christmas - never have, and even less so when the lead up features humid nights where sleep evades me, and choirs swelter in shopping malls belting out various versions of `The Little Drummer Boy'. The first Christmas I remember with any kind of clarity was when I was four years old and my mother bargained with the local butcher for the Red Cross Doll in his window display so that I could become its proud owner and name it Arabella. Toys were hard to find in wartime. The second one was with my father safely home from Italy, Greece, North Africa and wherever else the Eighth Army went. Despite our poverty I remember him staggering into my bedroom with a pillow case full of second hand books - Rupert Annuals and a long forgotten book character called Toby Twirl. Oh, and a red plastic tea set with which I played for years. Then of course there was the truly awful Christmas of 1951 when he suddenly died on the twelfth of December, struck down with a mysterious illness that turned him yellow, far too yellow and dispatched him within days even though he went to hospital. How odd that in those far off days we all believed in the magical powers of the local hospital. How guilty I felt, how responsible because he and I had been locked in ongoing battle since 1946 and I had so often fervently wished for his demise. After his death the poverty became more grinding and the Christmases more miserable than usual, undistinguished one from another. Then when I was seventeen a suddenly more exciting Christmas spent in London with new Australian flatmates whilst my poor mother and young brother sipped their festive whiskey tea in North Kent and told themselves I would surely put in an appearance on Boxing Day. Seven yuletides with Vidar my oh so controlling lover and the father of my first child, passed indifferently although I do remember him once giving me a tiny Steiff bear that I treasured for years and then lost. Suddenly the love of my life was in the past and I was once again alone, now with a baby that he assured me he never wanted to lay his eyes upon. He kept his word in that respect but those first festive seasons as a mother were delightful despite the fact that money had once again become an issue. To have happy Christmases you definitely need children around you, preferably your own. The happiest of all were then yet to come once securely married and within a few short years, mother of three. I recall working frantically to create my own little Dickensian world in this corner of the Pacific, complete with roast goose (hard to find I can tell you), and puddings made in November. When others headed for the beach with their glazed hams and fruit salads, we stayed firmly at home in Kohimarama mimicking the characters from `A Christmas Carol'. And of course it was most definitely worth all the hard work when two out of three of those children, now heading towards middle age, still get excited at the thought of Christmas Trees, carols and roasting chestnuts.