It could be that I'm not as observant as I once was, could be old age but I think it's once again this global conspiracy to turn people away from any and all traditional roots.
Do our lords and masters think that the masses will be easier to control? If they worship the great god of consumerism?
Years ago, mother started to buy presents in the new year sales for the next years Christmas presents. Apart from that then it would have to be the tally man for gifts and she would end up paying for them over the following year.
These days of instant credit and plastic no one thinks of the cost, it's just a case of sign on the dotted line and its yours at once. The first Christmas present that I can remember was a transistor radio made of Bakelite.
To call it a transistor radio well that's probably being kind. From memory it was 2 inches wide 9 inches long and about 9 inches high.
Not what we in this day and age would consider a transistor radio, these days we even build them in our watches, and mobile phones.
But I'm wondering again. It seems to get easier to let you mind wonder the older you get.
Christmas lunch was prepared by the women of the family, all of the shopping purchased, vegetables peeled and prepared along with the turkey(which was always fresh, no such thing as a freezer) but the men were the Christmas lunch chefs about the only household task they did for the year.
The women were sent to the best room, yes we had a best room, not allowed into it the rest of the year that was for posh people and visitors. There they sipped the small glasses of sherry that none if them really wanted, bottled Guinness would have been more to their tastes.
To be fair I can not remember a Christmas lunch from my youth that the food was not perfect which was amazing because the closer to eating time it became the drunker the men in the kitchen would become. Ensuring that after lunch they would leave all of the washing and cleaning to the women whilst they got on with the serious business of sleeping in the chairs.
Another thing Why do we always invite more people than there were chairs?
At Christmas you would have the family around, relatives, old people well anybody over 10 was old to me. That there was never enough chairs in the posh room, two armchairs and a two seater settee.
The chairs around the kitchen table were like Joseph's multi coloured coat, many colours and many shapes but at least we had them. Some of our neighbours had stools. If you sat on them you could get sea sick.
Do I consider that I had a deprived childhood, never thought about it before. Yes would be the answer to that question. There was never a lot to go around and what there was went down my fathers throat and into the tills of the local pubs. But that's the way he was brought up, like his father before him and his before him. No wonder its taken me 60 odd years to live down the sins of my father.
We get (the wife and I) invited to the brother in laws and his wife's home on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Not any other time of the year but we can tell not to intrude on them any other time. There used to be lots of old folk there for the "festivities" but they have all died and we are the new old folk.
Bugger me when did that happen?
- only you will know, is it worth bothering?
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