On the first day of Christmas.....

As promised…. Here it is, the inaugural post in my series of very personal Christmas experiences and impressions of the season as a whole. I’ll be sharing things very close to my heart in a lot of these posts so get ready to be tantalized by what will prove to be a weird and wonderful expedition into the ugly reality lurking behind all the tinsel and glitter!!!! Whatever… just get on with it…

On the first day of Christmas…. I’ll kick off with something from my childhood, may as well start at the beginning right? I do recall way back when, and I’m talking waaay back.. when I was about four or so, circa 1973/4, I was tremendously excited to receive a little stuffed panda and a book called the Twinkle Annual. Twinkle was a magazine for little girls and every year they came out with an annual (as did most comic’s at that time, do they still do that??). I seem to remember these gifts being given to me by my Mum’s hairdresser who we called Aunty Margaret, a lovely older lady with curly hair and glasses and a beautiful warmth. I could not sleep on Christmas Eve, I was soooo full of excitement about Santa coming and what gifts he would leave for me, my brother told me that the sooner I went to sleep the sooner I would wake up and see what I had. I lay there for what seemed like forever thinking that the night would never, ever end, and I remember it as if it was just yesterday!  Well, the funny thing about that particular year is that I don’t recall anything other than the panda and the Twinkle annual. I’m sure I got a gift pack of soaps and bath stuff, we always got one of those from one of our aunts, and another aunt would send us World Wildlife Fund Christmas Cards with a crisp one pound note taped inside with perfect precision.

There is a photo somewhere of me on that wonderful day, I’m wearing a red maxi dress with blue ruffles around the neck and wrists (it was lovely polyester nylon!!) and I’m holding that precious panda in my arms. Cute! We liked to dress nicely on Christmas day and I loved that part of it, even at that tender age I was definitely one for formality and had a sense of occasion!!!

I believe we lived in my Grandmothers cottage at the time, maybe we had just moved to Scotland I’m not sure but I do know that there was my Grandmother, my parents and all four of us kids in a tiny one bed roomed cottage and we had two bull mastiffs….. Whoa… what a thought!!! I know we must have lived there cos that’s where I was when I remember trying to get to sleep, lying on some blankets that were on top of an old travel chest that she had lying on it’s side. I can only imagine the rest of the kids were on the floor or the large double bed… did they sleep on the couch?? Where did Nanna sleep?? I know I’m not wrong about it but I can’t imagine four kids and three adults in a teeny tiny one bed cottage? Freaky.

Anyhoodles, one or two meager Christmases when I was a little girl didn’t kill me and the memories are fond to be honest. I loved that panda and kept him for a long time, until one day my dear brother used it for target practice for his air rifle. Nice!!! And if I could find the picture you’d see a happy little blonde girl with shiny cheeks and a happy little smile in her fancy dress. So… think about it… forget the credit card overload and get your kid a little panda this year. She will love you for it…. I guarantee it!!!