Esther Chilton

I have a special Christmas Guest Writer this week. Sharon Harvey has a poignant Christmas tale to share:

Memories of Christmas

Christmas is a time for families to enjoy the exchanging of presents. My late mum and I certainly did. And for those with faith, celebrating Jesus’ birth which we did.

We would decorate the room first with those balloons and those paper bells (remember those?!) hanging from the ceiling and other decorative Christmas stuff. Then it was time for the Christmas tree. The same love and attention went into that that went into the rest of the room. The only time it went wrong, was when I decided to try and be brave and offered to get up the ladders and do the ceiling decorations. Mum knew of my fear of heights and so was slightly concerned of why I offered, but she relented and up the ladder I went to continue where she had left off. Only it wasn’t that simple, was it? No, to my utter horror, I froze and said:

“Mum?’

“Yes?’

“I can’t move!’

I obviously couldn’t see my mum’s face, but she tried to coax me down but to no avail. I was willing to go – my body not so much!

Eventually, though goodness knows how, I managed to get down and back up went Mum to finish off her job that she had started. 

Anyway, we got on with the Christmas tree, although my little incident didn’t go without a couple of mentions – that was us, and lots of giggles and head shakes followed!

After all that had been completed, we started on the baking. We baked cakes, mince pies, etc. Mum told me when I was younger we had to make more mince pies as Santa loved them, which I found out when I left one out for him when I went to bed Christmas Eve night to wake up Christmas Morning and it had gone.

Talking of which, I had gone to bed to await Santa’s visit and the next morning when I woke up, my eyes widened at all the presents at the end of my bed.  I would tear the paper off them and then run downstairs and be astounded at the amount of presents awaiting for me under the tree, remembering what had been up on my bed.

Over the years our custom continued: the decorating of the room (though I never offered to get up the ladder again, quite possibly to Mum’s relief!), the Christmas tree and the baking. Once again, more mince pies were baked, though it did then occur to me that Mum loved Mince pies…

“Those mince pies were never for Santa, were they? They were for you!’ I turned to say to her.

Her reply? A smirk.

Since her death over Christmas I’ve had really mixed feelings about it. Do I still enjoy it and remember the fun times we had or remember what had been cruelly ripped from me?

I did hate it for a while, but after I thought about it, whilst I think she would probably have ‘allowed’ me to feel upset over Christmas because of her death, I think she would have then said, ‘Okay, come on, now start enjoying it for me, for us, for what it meant to us and our enjoyment of the time.’

This year we had snow outside as we put our Christmas tree up and there was something quite magical about putting it up while the snow lay outside. Okay, it wasn’t Christmas, but it still felt special and gave the spirit of Christmas. Mum would have loved it!

Something else she would have found quite interesting would be the new baubles on the Christmas tree, rose baubles. She loved her roses, and seeing baubles with roses on, it seemed obvious to purchase them as another tribute to Mum.

And she would have loved the Santa sleigh that now comes around, which didn’t back then, with Santa on his Christmas sleigh with Christmas songs blaring out, Santa waving at you and wishing you a Happy Christmas. She certainly would have had a selfie with him and no doubt the mince pies would have been mentioned!

Like every year, I take a Christmas wreath down for her with my Christmas hat on, which I think she would have both loved and laughed at (and probably wanted one too!) and just over the last couple of years, I have gone especially on Christmas Day so she is still a part of Christmas Day as well.

Happy Christmas, Mum, and thanks for the memories. Love and miss you always.