tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post1526959213214891416..comments2023-05-02T12:33:58.182+01:00Comments on Perpetually In Transit: Christmas Day with a difference Perpetuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-58042386834874524882013-01-25T17:21:28.057+00:002013-01-25T17:21:28.057+00:00It's great to have you back commenting, Dee, e...It's great to have you back commenting, Dee, especially when you leave comments as lovely and detailed as this. Yes, I imagine there must have been a lot of differences between your Christmas celebrations and ours, but as you say, the most important elements would have been the same - joy, fun, feasting and the centrality of family relationships.<br /><br />I love the fact that you still have the bird ornament from your family Christmas tree so long ago. Yes, ours were fastened to the tree with the same type of clip used to fasten the candle holders and they had long tails of some kind of glistening silky fibres, rather than real feathers. I remember them from my earliest childhood in the late 40s and early 50s, so ours can't have been so much younger than yours. I would so enjoy seeing a photograph of your bird sometime, perhaps to illustrate a post about your childhood Christmases.....Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-81778253375824030232013-01-25T14:01:56.956+00:002013-01-25T14:01:56.956+00:00Dear Perpetua, this is such a lovely story, filled...Dear Perpetua, this is such a lovely story, filled with memories that must have comforted and delighted you often in the many years since. Thank you for letting me know about it. So many things about the English Christmas at that time differ from what I knew but celebrating and feasting with the family is the same.<br /><br />Your Christmas tea sounds so appealing. So delicious. That you have me salivating as I read! <br /><br />And the two glass birds with the tail feathers must have truly been like the one I still have, which always took pride of place on our tree when I was a child. I think the bird, which has a clip by which it's attached to the tree, came from the early days of mom and dad's marriage. So probably around 1928. So it would be about 85 years old now. The tail is gone, but for many years it had real feathers that dad inserted in the hole that had held the original tail. Now even those are gone and I simply have the glass bird which is my most treasured ornament.<br /><br />These memories are so dear aren't they. Memories of security and love and the bond that held us all together. Peace. Deehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00612299013780771262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-40850991998011275472013-01-04T17:39:49.085+00:002013-01-04T17:39:49.085+00:00Thank, Sally. Most of my childhood Christmases blu...Thank, Sally. Most of my childhood Christmases blur into each other nowadays, but this one is still so clear in my memory. You are so right about life being simpler then in many ways. Christmas was certainly less lavish and commercial, with most of our gifts being just small tokens and one big present each from our parents. <br /><br />In this context you might enjoy the post I wrote just before Christmas last year:<br /><br />http://perpetually-in-transit.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/ghosts-of-christmasses-past.htmlPerpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-56729555748100818212013-01-04T01:16:34.678+00:002013-01-04T01:16:34.678+00:00This is a beautiful Christmas memory. Thanks for ...This is a beautiful Christmas memory. Thanks for sharing. Oh for those more simple days of our youth that you describe here. Even if the electricity had been on, don't you think those days were so much more simple and satisfying?Sally Wesselyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06470453773515491625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-14046579463215371582012-12-27T18:20:40.994+00:002012-12-27T18:20:40.994+00:00I'm glad you enjoyed it, Ricky. You can only h...I'm glad you enjoyed it, Ricky. You can only have been about 10 that Christmas, but the winter that followed was so extraordinary that children and adults alike have always remembered it.<br /><br />I had no idea that the Big Freeze was the downfall of commercial canal transport in the Midlands, but it makes complete sense. The industry must already have been experiencing difficulties with so much competition from other means of transport and this must have been the last straw. The sad end of a very significant era in the history of Britain.Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-1736742331209641512012-12-27T16:39:12.643+00:002012-12-27T16:39:12.643+00:00Thank you for this post Perpetua.
Whilst I don&#...Thank you for this post Perpetua. <br /><br />Whilst I don't specifically remember Christmas Day 1962, I do very much remember the winter that followed. The snow reached my home city of Coventry on Boxing Day &, as you have already noted in one or two of your earlier replies, didn't finally melt until mid-March 1963. One of the sad consequences of that winter was the virtual end of commercial carrying on the narrow canals of the English Midlands because boats could not move along the frozen waterways for nearly three months.<br /><br />And yes, I remember icy patterns on the inside of my bedroom window, the main heating coming from a open fire in the living room...... As I've said before, we are of a certain age :-)chaplain.czhttp://www.rickyyates.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-34026452830307537232012-12-24T08:28:37.125+00:002012-12-24T08:28:37.125+00:00Thank you, Patricia, and welcome to my blog. I lov...Thank you, Patricia, and welcome to my blog. I love the fact that our memories of childhood Christmases have so many similarities despite our very different settings. Belonging to the same generation gives us so much in common even though growing up half a world apart. I don't envy your mother cooking Christmas dinner on a wood-burning stove in midsummer Australian heat! A little snow and ice would probably have been very welcome. :-)<br /><br />Merry Christmas to you and yours.Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-5726019919372928782012-12-24T00:56:45.773+00:002012-12-24T00:56:45.773+00:00What a lovely post, full of childhood Christmas me...What a lovely post, full of childhood Christmas memories - so many are the same for me, despite being in the tropic heat of country Australia. The chicken, so special, as we only had it once a year at Christmas when one of the backyard hens was sacrificed. And always cooked on a wood-burning stove (no gas or electric stoves for us). We had an ice-chest, not a refrigerator, but Mum still managed to make the jelly and trifle, to go with the plum pudding. Board games - yes! and we had one or two of those delicate birds with a silky tail - I loved it! Must admit, I was exactly the same age, 16, for Christmas 1962 :)<br />Thank you and Merry Christmas.Patriciahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11685403215601517267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-37557947215843171652012-12-23T22:40:36.562+00:002012-12-23T22:40:36.562+00:00Thanks, Antoinette. Yes, candle-lit trees and room...Thanks, Antoinette. Yes, candle-lit trees and rooms have a magic all their own and I shall enjoy thinking of you eating your Christmas Eve meal by candlelight. I love the fact that you still have some of those ornaments with their candle-wax. Sadly none of my mother's cherished ornaments have come down to me, though I will never forget them.<br /><br />As for snow - if only......Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-25913570995934094352012-12-23T10:57:09.737+00:002012-12-23T10:57:09.737+00:00What a ovely Christmas memory! I can just remember...What a ovely Christmas memory! I can just remember as a tiny tot [early '60s] that our Christmas tree had real candles -- my mother insisted! To this day I have one or two ornaments which have survived the many moves and still bear witness as they have candle wax on them :-). <br />Candle light, intentional or otherwise, is such lovely light. We always eat our Christmas Eve meal by it, switching off all the electric lights :-)<br /><br />As for snow, well as far as I'm concerned you can never have enough! I love it!<br />Niall & Antoinettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12699304108340257145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-71472761396763624642012-12-22T09:50:59.609+00:002012-12-22T09:50:59.609+00:00Glad you enjoyed it, BtoB. I can well imagine that...Glad you enjoyed it, BtoB. I can well imagine that this winter would stay in the mind even of a three-year-old. Given that the temperature didn't rise above freezing for weeks on end, you must have thought your snowman was a permanent fixture. :-)Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-5955216885695462182012-12-22T09:38:37.371+00:002012-12-22T09:38:37.371+00:00Thank you for this lovely post. I was 3 years old ...Thank you for this lovely post. I was 3 years old and one of my first memories is helping my Dad to build a massive snowman in the garden that seemed to last forever. BacktoBodrumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07627125508442009313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-72207758223421864712012-12-22T09:07:27.077+00:002012-12-22T09:07:27.077+00:00Thanks, Annie, you're very welcome. The mentio...Thanks, Annie, you're very welcome. The mention of that winter, if not that Christmas Day, seems to have awakened a lot of memories. I love the thought of a three-year-old Annie between snow-walls taller than herself. :D Of course the light would be different down there, but we bigger folk have never experienced it. I wonder if I will ever again see drifts like those?Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-33982796856473843712012-12-22T00:52:07.144+00:002012-12-22T00:52:07.144+00:00What a lovely post. All the pictures of me from th...What a lovely post. All the pictures of me from that winter show a 3 year old all bundled up in scarves and mitts, and in one my father has shovelled a path through the snow from the front door to the snow ploughed road and I am walking through that cutting, its walls taller than me. I think that might be my first memory, the way those snow walls seemed green-blue as I walked between them. Thank you for the memories Kathy :DAnnie Cholewahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17608057589525908147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-57404737517731935252012-12-21T22:27:12.163+00:002012-12-21T22:27:12.163+00:00Of course, Catriona, it was your birthday this wee...Of course, Catriona, it was your birthday this week! :-) You would have been much better off in a warm bathroom in the hospital than a cold bedroom back home. The fact that the dreadful winter began over the Christmas holiday means that a lot of people probably do remember this Christmas perhaps more than others, but the power cut was the crowning touch for us - a Christmas like no other I have experienced. Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-25476882589115018722012-12-21T22:14:17.067+00:002012-12-21T22:14:17.067+00:00Thank you Pereptua, that's a lovey description...Thank you Pereptua, that's a lovey description of the first Christmas I was alive - at six days old, and three weeks premature, apparently I was put in my cot in the warm bathroom of the hospital as there were no spare incubators! My Dad evidently was given lunch and tea at the hospital, and I received a tin of baby powder from the local mayor as a Christmas week baby (the Christmas Day ones were evidently given a £1 in a Post Office book - riches back then). I have always assumed that being born at the start of that winter is why I like snow...!Catrionanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-53310217211659527162012-12-21T21:34:10.037+00:002012-12-21T21:34:10.037+00:00Thanks, DB, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I certain...Thanks, DB, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I certainly enjoyed writing it as this day stands out so very clearly in my memory and it was great fun to revisit it in detail. <br /><br />Have a lovely Christmas despite the dreadful weather.Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-76825316131539864572012-12-21T20:49:56.128+00:002012-12-21T20:49:56.128+00:00I enjoyed this so much. You write very vividly. Th...I enjoyed this so much. You write very vividly. Thank you for sharing it with us.Dancing Beastiehttp://dancingbeastie.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-27426186785642350562012-12-21T20:29:45.918+00:002012-12-21T20:29:45.918+00:00Gosh, Pueblo Girl, I don't envy your mother. I...Gosh, Pueblo Girl, I don't envy your mother. It's hard enough being pregnant and ungainly, but with all that snow and ice, it must have been really tricky for her to get about safely.<br /><br />Indeed we had TV. We got it in 1958 or 59, when I was about 12, but of course it was a small black-and-white set and there were only two channels, BBC and ITV. BBC2 wasn't launched until 1964 and my parents didn't get colour TV until the late 1970s. The first time I ever saw TV was in 1953 when we all gathered at a neighbour's to watch the coronation. Gosh, I'm feeling old....:-)Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-72970972597090760192012-12-21T20:22:12.155+00:002012-12-21T20:22:12.155+00:00Molly, I think all of us who are old enough to hav...Molly, I think all of us who are old enough to have experienced that winter could never forget it. So cold and snowy and so very long. My parents swore by that Rayburn and used it for very many years. It kept the kitchen so beautifully warm too. We have a solid fuel room-heater and sometimes I simmer soups and stews on top of it.Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-85213875322314362062012-12-21T18:07:42.455+00:002012-12-21T18:07:42.455+00:00I was born that year. My mother has always told m...I was born that year. My mother has always told me that it was the worst winter she can remember, and on top of it, she was always worried about falling over because she was pregnant with me.<br /><br />You had TV even then?!! I can remember our first, which means we couldn't have got it until years later. My parallel experience of cosy family life without TV was the miner's strike in the 70s. I loved it.Pueblo girlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04904318623281033442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-22345186202761166802012-12-21T18:01:48.153+00:002012-12-21T18:01:48.153+00:00I remember that winter of '62 too. What a love...I remember that winter of '62 too. What a lovely memory of your Christmas. I still cook on my solid fuel Rayburn - I find the food cooks brilliantly even if it does take a little bit longer.Mollyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08604864977387798470noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-90430817980522355952012-12-21T17:57:43.896+00:002012-12-21T17:57:43.896+00:00Thanks, Kathy.Thankfully we always played games at...Thanks, Kathy.Thankfully we always played games at Christmas then and later and still do, but TV was creeping in and the temptation was often to watch, not interact. On this occasion we had no choice in the matter and to live the day by candle-light was a wonderful bonus in retrospect. I agree with you about smart-phones, which so seem to be addictive for many people. Being an old fogey, I don't have one, so can't test my own theory. :-)<br /><br />Now to go and pack for tomorrow's journey to DS's home.....<br /><br />Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-33888488533612308112012-12-21T17:51:55.484+00:002012-12-21T17:51:55.484+00:00Thanks, Bonnie. I think that must be down to the v...Thanks, Bonnie. I think that must be down to the vividness of my memory, which is still very special.Perpetuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01214396019726161983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705825161954545710.post-15975871322726405352012-12-21T17:15:06.782+00:002012-12-21T17:15:06.782+00:00This is such a lovely memory, Perpetua, and beauti...This is such a lovely memory, Perpetua, and beautifully underscores the point so well that the best times are when we talk with, play games with and just enjoy each other. So many of our modern conveniences (most recently these smart phones when people seem to be oblivious to those they're with because they're so busy texting) come between us. I love your memory of this scaled down, but wonderfully happy Christmas. May your holiday this year bring its own singular joys to you and yours.Dr. Kathy McCoyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02903015507894951725noreply@blogger.com