Had a bit of toast and marmalade with Lapsang for breakfast. Did a fruit tray to put on the table. Julian and Dorothy are due at about 4pm for their breakfast so laid the table and placed the Pandoro on it - they will be having Pandoro and coffee, and perhaps some fruit.
Thinking about earlier and childhood Christmases, I always remember the lead-up to my childhood Christmas starting a week or so beforehand when, lying in bed, I would hear the carol singers going from house to house at night - very exciting. As a teenager I would go carol singing with the local church group. We were often invited inside larger houses to stand around the piano and sing before the family and guests, and were rewarded with drinks and mince pies. The strangest time for Christmas carol singing was in Trinidad, under the tropical sun and being offered glasses of non alcoholic eggnogg.
We decorated the house in England with holly and mistletoe after foraging in the woods, then put holly branches all around the house behind pictures and mirrors. Mistletoe was always hung in the hall to encourage kissing, and I do recall avoiding being dragged into the dangerous area of the hall. My grandmother also used to purchase rather boring coloured gummed paper strips which we would lick and link together to form paper chains, transformed into bold decorations when hung diagonally across the room, forming loops, also across the walls.
A Christmas tree would appear on Christmas Eve, and the evening was spent by the family decorating the tree. We would hang old-fashioned ladies stockings by our beds. Our Christmas lists had previously been written and held gingerly over the fire until they flew up the chimney then off to Father Christmas.
Like millions of other children, we tried to stay awake to see Father Christmas but the mystery of the large, knobbly stocking laying across the bottom of the bed in the morning remained. Bursting with excitement we opened these at a fairly ungodly hour, usually five or six in the morning. I always searched these small gifts of chocolate coins, sugar mice, jack-in-a-box, and various other toys, always with nuts and mandarins in the toes and topped with a cracker, looking for evidence of brand names, but never found any proof that they had been purchased locally. We then rushed to our parents room to show them our booty.
After that, sometimes we children went to church,then spent Christmas at home with my parents and sister. There were just the four of us, and my mother was extremely well organised. The decorations and tree were very elegant, quite a ceremony of passing and unwrapping gifts around the tree with a glass of sherry. Lunch was always perfect - usually very traditional and followed by the Queen's speech. We were encouraged to take a brisk walk after lunch, then it was back for tea with Christmas cake, and as I remember it, a pretty early night. Quiet, but very enjoyable.
The most jolly Christmases I remember were when, as a young married woman with a small child, I would spend Christmas with my parents-in-law. They had four children and Christmas day there was a very jolly, if chaotic event, with best dresses and lots of champagne. Visitors would call in the day and be offered a drink. Despite a late start to the day, somehow, with different people doing various tasks, between ten and fifteen people managed to fit in around the table for a very festive late luncheon.
After that, many drinks were consumed and quite often very silly games, such as Twister were played, where those old enough to know better became very competitive and the game was usually won by my mother-in-law, the most competitive of all. Oddly, even after my first husband became estranged from his family, I spent many Christmases there with my second husband, and this became a tradition for many years until my ex in-laws divorced and moved away. I do miss those times.
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