Bradford Lad: Our Simple Christmas
Mike Coatesworth remembers with affectionate delight the family Christmases of his boyhood, a time when money was in short supply.
Are you ready for Christmas? Are you having a family get together? Every year we have always had a get together on Christmas day, and I know that this year is going to be the same, except that it will be later in the day. You probably understand that when the children have kids of their own and their kids start growing up, they just prefer their own family Christmas morning watching the smiling faces of their children opening their presents.
I was in Bradford city centre the other day and it was great to see all the wonderful lights around the city streets, making the place delightful and cheery.
Christmas is great, I love it! It’s not for anything that I might receive, but for the pleasure that I see on children's features. Most of all it appears to me to be the only time that people truly unite in search of peace, even if it is only for a couple of days, Families try to make it special by not arguing with each other.
When I was a lad the whole family would sit together around the table. We all had specific tasks to do in preparing for the day. A couple of us would cut long strips of coloured paper, another would glue the strips of paper and make a make a chain out of them. Yet another would cut out the shapes of Christmas trees in different colours. Others attached string to the paper trees then hang the homemade decorations from the ceiling and along the walls.
Usually by the time that we had finished dad would have arrived home with a real Christmas tree. We decorated it with items we had made from coloured paper. My aunt then placed the fairy that she had made on the top of the tree, and we all stood back to admire our handiwork.
Us kids would do odd jobs for people to earn pennies to buy presents for each other. Okay, the presents weren’t expensive, but they were special as they genuinely came from the heart - and our hard-earned money. A lot of thought went into ensuring that each person received a practical gift. One time dad received from me a new wooden handle for the chopper that he used on the firewood, since the old one was broken.
I remember one Christmas day tears ran down my aunt's cheeks when she saw my gift to her - a long handled wooden spoon to stop her burning her hands as she stirred the large pan of porridge in the mornings.
Time for a Cuppa!
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