A Christmas Carol: buying presents

When it comes to Christmas present buying, I seem to have lost my mojo. It wasn’t always so.

I don’t want to adopt the Scrooge approach. I read a bit today about Saint Nicholas, and his frequent and anonymous gift giving. That seemed like a good thing.

At the same time, I seem to have reached a point in life where presents seem less important. I am lucky to have the things I need, and more.

As relatives grow older (clearly I do too), it can become harder to work out what to buy for them, when they too have what they need – some may already be giving away possessions.

And yet. There is something special about receiving a present – and something equally special about planning the right item for the right person.

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Christmas Past

Once upon a time, there was a little girl, who was excited about presents, but not so clear on the notion of keeping secrets. So one year, pre-Christmas, she rushed up to her daddy and said, “We’ve got your Christmas present! We got you SOCKS!”

I have moved on a little since then. (And my father has been known to receive more than socks.)

In my teens, I would think carefully about what to buy – for varied school friends, as well as family. I would even do a special day trip to look for more unusual presents than I might find in our fairly small town.

Once I was old enough to travel a bit further, independently, that was an even better source of presents. Painted wooden candlesticks, bowls and so on from Poland.

Linens from one place – honey from many more. (My mum likes honey, and likes trying different kinds.)

It was fun to go looking, trying to find items typical of a particular place - or things that were just beautiful, and right for someone I had in mind.

It didn’t always go right, of course. The item that I loved might not be so appreciated by a relative who already knew what kind of calendar she liked, and didn’t want a fancy Italian one. Even if it was on beautiful paper.

But mostly, there was joy on both sides. Certainly on mine, as the giver.

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Christmas Present

These days, going across town can constitute a work trip. Going abroad takes lots of planning – and more effort than I remember in the past.

So I am left with my imagination, a few ideas from the Internet at times, and whatever I might come across when doing regular food shops. (This is fine, convenient too, but it’s not always a place of  great gift inspiration.)

What has also changed is my realisation of just how easily gifts can be bought, added to, stockpiled. And all of a sudden, that item that you thought long and hard over, hoped would be treasured, is now just one in a collection of many.

What’s left is a desire not to buy things people don’t want. Which tends to mean I mostly buy tokens, give cash, or (with some relatives) make donations on their behalf.

There’s a small counterbalance to this. It’s less fun to open an envelope than a present, so in some cases I do both: the money for them to choose, and something small to open there and then.

Back in the spring, when I did my eco series, there was one post I had meant to write, and never got round to. The notion was: buy items that can be recycled.

I don’t mean that the person takes them straight off to the charity shop – or into a recycling bin. That would suggest that you had seriously got it wrong.

But items that are made of natural materials; that can be used up (food, of course); that can have a further life with another family, or in a charity shop, if and when you choose to part with them.

Books. Food. CDs, maybe. Games that can be passed on to others in turn.

(If I’m honest, I would just buy books for everyone on my presents list, all the time. I can get excited about that.

But I appreciate that it’s not everyone’s idea of a present – and sometimes even the avid book collector may question the need for another book.)

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Christmas Future

What about you? Are you still a keen present buyer – or recipient? Has it all paled a bit?
Do you look to the kids’ generation to be excited about present giving again?

St Nicholas gave to those who needed it – used up his inheritance that way, in fact. The Christmas story tells us of a priceless gift, one longed for by some, overlooked by others.

I want to come back to something of that sense of value and honouring in the gifts that I give. I don’t know exactly how, in a time and location that seems more about excess than value.

But I’m thinking about it. And as we’re told, it’s the thought that counts.

A Christmas Carol: decorations (on repeat)

Christmas decorations. Never mind clouds of angels, it’s the clouds of dust as you bring out the box that remains hidden all year.

The art collection that reveals the quality of your handiwork, and the aesthetic instincts of your children. Something like that.

It may instead be your annual reminder of the multiple uses for a toilet roll tube.
An opportunity to spread a little more glitter, along with Christmas cheer, as you remove the items from the box.

And yes, for anyone with hoarding tendencies, it’s the ideal excuse. Make them, keep them, receive a few new ones maybe, every now and then. Choose not to consider quality, throw them back in your container, and ignore them for the next few months.

Are they just a way to distract and occupy over-excited children? Or can they tell you something more about the moments that make up a season – maybe a life?

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Christmas Past

If I strain to visualise it, I can just about see it in my mind’s eye. Making angels out of toilet roll tubes and paper doilies.

Sitting in a primary school classroom, chatting to my friends, fighting over the glue. Occasionally applying it to one’s fingers and dreamily peeling it off as it sets.

Anticipating the end of term, the day to bring in boardgames. (Big excitement. Will someone bring in Operation? Better still, will I get to play it?)

Also just about within reach as a memory: creating an owl out of a fir cone and bits of felt. My granny collected owls at that time. I think it went on her tree, and later came home with me.

Later on, now part of a married couple, rediscovering the homemade decorations aspect of Christmas. Our long hallway was a perfect foil for cardboard snowflakes, strung together with thread. A locked cupboard gained a snowdrift of stars, yellow and red.

The toilet roll angel has gone, I think. I am not sure about the owl (I haven’t unpacked the main decorations yet). Every year, I realise that I have kept earlier banners, and that they may not be making a repeat performance this year.

But they do connect me with a time where making was also about anticipating. Enjoying the excuse to be indoors, warm, and maybe having fun creating something with others.

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Christmas Present

The decorations have come out. I select a few to start us off. And I realise that of course,
it’s not just my decorations, old or verging on antique.

It’s the next generation of Christmas crafts, belonging to Junior Reader. A paper plate wreath that I pin on the inside of our door. (Our part of town is pretty windy. External Christmas wreaths don’t stand much of a chance.)

A Christmas mobile: two reindeer, one Father Christmas in the middle. The reindeer have been hung in such a way that they seem to be bookending Father Christmas rather than facing the same way.

It’s OK. Christmas is about remembering old favourites. And it’s about seeing the passage of time, both yours and that of the junior creators in the family.

The Christmas story is full of frailty, making do. A feed trough instead of a cradle. A stable instead of a home. And our attempts to get to the awe and the amazement of that story are frail too.

That frailty, that making do, didn’t stop the unfolding of the story. Nor does it stop ours unfolding, year on year.

So this year, I see that frailty in the little makes and mementoes of previous years. They are simple treasures, really. We have moved beyond them, and yet we still want them to be part of us.

They may be poor imitations: of stars, of angels, and more. But we choose to keep them,
to bring them out again, to dust them down and put these younger parts of ourselves on display.

And to treasure who we have been, as well as who we are now.

A Christmas Carol: the round robin Christmas letter

You know this one. It’s the extra piece of paper that falls out when you open the Christmas card. The whistle-stop tour of someone’s life over the last year.

They’ve been the subject of books, containing spoof round robin letters. They’re a staple of pre-Christmas news stories, from the BBC to the Daily Mail.

Are they there to add joy to the season? Do they simply elicit a groan?

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Christmas Past

Guilty as charged. We wrote them. We sent them. And, verily, we received them too.

The rationale goes a bit like this:

1) Want to keep in touch with people. Unaccountably, find self in pre-Facebook era but with availability of both home computer and printer.

2) Want to keep in touch with people AND avoid hand falling off rewriting same news into every Christmas card.

3) Solution: write it once, print it out, add it into cards! Done. Card can then be used for asking the recipient how they are doing instead.

It was the era when we were able to travel a bit more. When we were doing our annual bit of DIY (shortly to be upgraded to paying other people because we discovered we really weren’t very good at it). When Dan’s business was establishing itself.

So we wrote the letters. No, mostly I wrote them. Dan formatted them. (This was also the era of the homemade Christmas card. More about that another time. Clearly, this was in our pre-parenting days.)

The thing with writing an annual round-up is realising how much happens in a year. How much change there is, whether it’s change you want or change that happens anyway.

But on the plus side: the round robin was really the reason this blog began. An alternative place to put our news, without the need for printouts.

So we stopped giving the official ‘here’s how we are’ – and discovered the world of blogging about travel, food, little moments that feel special – and so on. The blog may not look much like that any more – but that’s fine too.

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Christmas Present

We still get round robin letters from friends, more often those who live at a distance and whom we see less often. So: good thing or bad thing?

My mum often opens Christmas cards and bemoans those who sign them off and say nothing about how they are doing. And, by and large, I tend to be with her on this one.

I’m really pleased that someone has remembered me, thought to write – and I’d really like to know how they are too. Especially if Christmas is our main time for catching up.

The letters are not of the ‘Felicity and her latest gymkana’, as the spoofs would have it.
They speak of the daily grind and the much anticipated high points. Of health, often in very honest terms. They celebrate and they are vulnerable.

Yes, there are photos of children. Family gatherings too, maybe. (That’s OK. That’s what gets shared on Facebook too.)

They are ordinary and they are special too. And for those who do write annually, a picture emerges over time: the evolution of a family, of personalities, talents and so on.

I’m in the camp where I now tend only to send cards to those where I can’t send an electronic greeting. That tends to be older relatives, former neighbours.

Christmas is one of those rare times where many people are going through similar preparations at the same time. They are building up to a particular day (whatever the significance it holds for them) and they are huddling in against the dark.

It makes sense to turn and reflect, even in small part. To reach out. To remember.

These days, with the cost of stamps in the UK, with the growing ease of communicating through emails, Facebook, Twitter, I may just be grateful that someone has bothered to write to me. And to say how they are doing.

A Christmas Carol: daily readings

Readings in the build-up to Christmas isn’t something new. The web is full of daily readings for advent, pitched at a whole range of different ages and stages.

What does it mean to share a book – or a series of stories – over nearly a month?

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Christmas Past

I don’t remember regular reading of books pre-Christmas as a child. Maybe I was just trawling my way through as many books as I could get my hands on, and my parents left me to it.

But in my teens, I came across the writer Zibby Oneal, and in particular her book A Formal Feeling. And one way or another, I came to a habit of reading it not just once, but annually, where I remembered, usually in December.

I’ve written about this one before, and once before that, but I can’t help returning to it.
In fact, I took it off the shelf last night to begin again.

Once started, I soon left behind the notion of a chapter a day, and just ploughed on through. (I also realised that a few of my posts in the past were more inspired by this book than I knew – the notion of ghost footprints on pavements being one.)

There is something appealing about a viewpoint into another person’s Christmas. Some of it is familiar, some of it is different.

Really, Christmas, with all its repetitions and memories, is a character in its own right in the book: and a way into exploring grief. What we remember, what we repeat because of keeping someone’s memory alive – and sometimes, an opportunity to see if our memories are accurate or not.

Between this and my trusty perpetual Advent calendar, I thought I’d got my regular Advent readings covered. And I have: for me. (I’m still reading others as I come across them, usually through other people’s blogs, so I guess those are extras.)

But there’s always space to build a tradition for someone else.

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Christmas Present

It’s interesting to see how one small change can spark its own tradition. So last year, having realised I’d bought a particular Christmas story compilation but not yet used it, we made a start.

The book has a mixture of stories: retellings of familiar Bible passages in the build-up of the Christmas story, but also classic Christmas stories from other countries.

Some I’d heard before, others were completely new to me, like one explaining how poinsettias came to be connected with Christmas. If you’re interested, I can’t find exactly the one we’ve got, but this is pretty close.

Often, Dan is the one in charge of stories at bedtime for Junior Reader. But for Advent, we tried out reading together: Dan would read a story at the front of the book, I would read one at the back. Little by little, we’d meet in the middle.

It became incredibly soothing. One of us would snuggle with Junior Reader, the other would read aloud to us all. Then we’d swap over. I found myself looking forward to the end of the day (and not just for the usual tired parent reasons).

There’s not quite enough stories in the book to cover all of Advent, but that’s fine – there are others we have to hand that we can add in. Since I usually can’t stop talking about children’s books, I see no reason to leave you guessing:

  • The Tailor of Gloucester (Beatrix Potter). I have the opportunity to put on my best mouse voice for ‘no more twist!’ – and try to keep dry eyes for the finale. As it’s now out of copyright, I’ve linked to the full thing on Project Gutenberg.
  • Lucy and Tom’s Christmas (Shirley Hughes). I love Shirley Hughes’ illustrations. I also particularly like the point in the story where Tom gets ‘cross’ on Christmas Day afternoon, and goes out for a walk with grandpa to calm down.
  • Angel Mae (Shirley Hughes). Another Shirley Hughes picture book. This one has a school nativity and a baby sister who is treated with some suspicion.
  • Spot’s Magical Christmas (Eric Hill). If your own junior reader likes a story where a character has to help Father Christmas manage the big delivery, you may like this one.
    It has its own animated film now too.
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Dr Seuss). I have been late in coming to the party for this one, but as we love lots of other Dr Seuss, it was time to try this too.

We also have a very simple woodcut-style picture Christmas Story book (kindly sold off by the local library), and a version of T’was the Night Before Christmas, both of which are generally reserved for Christmas Eve.

It all seemed to go well last time, so this year, we’re doing the same again. But ever aware of possible book-reading gaps in the day, I am sneaking in a version of The Nutcracker, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak. (You know I can’t resist a good Sendak picture book.)

Junior Reader is appreciating the bravery of the toy Nutcracker, the armies of toy soldiers, and the intrigue of what the King Mouse does next. I am reappreciating my parents buying lovely books for my childhood, and enjoying Junior Reader’s excitement.

I don’t know if we will end up reprising this as well – maybe we’ll find something new. I rather fancy reading The Box of Delights some time, if Junior Reader is up for another Christmas-related story, but we’ll see.

The main treat, of course, is gathering together, daily. Letting the words spill out into the air, building the magic.

Few of us would wish for ‘always winter, but never Christmas‘ – we look at the dark, the challenges in life, and long for resolution of them. Whichever Christmas story we are reading.

A Christmas Carol: advent calendars

This is the point I love: when a series of blog posts starts to shift away from the original idea, into something a little different. Start that on day 2? Sure, why not.

You can read the starting point of the theme here. My original thought was to split the posts into a good number of Christmas Past and Christmas Present.

But as soon as I started thinking about topics, I realised that many of the topics have elements of past and present in them. Together. Because Christmas is about continuity, after all.

So today, it’s time to talk about advent calendars. (It should have been yesterday, really, but
I do like an intro to a theme. Gives me a chance to get myself into gear.)

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Christmas Past

We had the standard cardboard, open a door a day, calendars when I was growing up.
I’m sure there were years when I had to share with my brother and deal with that ‘it’s not your turn to open the door today, it’s mine’ malarkey. (It goes two ways, of course.)

But my heart is tied to the perpetual advent calendar that comes out every year. You can see the opening picture here, if you like.

I was given it as a little girl by one of my aunties. I’m not sure where it came from, or whether it was popular at the time. I haven’t come across one at someone else’s house, but I’m sure they are out there, somewhere.

The point of the calendar is it’s really a series of pictures and little poems, telling the Christmas story in a child-friendly way.

So there are children characters inserted into the story at points to say what’s happening:
a little boy helping out in Joseph’s carpentry workshop; another who sees Mary sitting with nowhere to stay, who takes it upon himself to find a place for the couple to rest.

There is something very peaceful about seeing the same images again, year after year.
Many of the verses have become internalised as I read them over again and again.

Really, as adults looking on at Christmas, we long to recapture something of the innocence along with the anticipation. This calendar is one of my ways in.

I may not always make it through the wardrobe, as it were, into the snowy land beyond. But it offers glimpses, chinks of light.

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Christmas Present

We are well up to date this year. Which means, really, we are catching on to the notion that others have had for quite some time now: the step beyond the chocolate advent calendar and on to the minifig version.

Dan was kindly given a Star Wars Lego advent calendar by another company this year.
(Good thing about the tech world: not afraid to claim toys for the grownups.)

It has been received with great excitement by Junior Reader. This is not just about putting together the little figure, you see – you type in a code on a certain website, Sundays only, and get to play particular Star Wars Lego games.

(I am guessing this is the updated version of the Blue Peter advent crown, for those who want to mark the progression of the weeks of Advent without the potential for setting fire to tinsel.)

If Star Wars is not your thing, I see that Lego has done other versions – as has Playmobil.
I am grateful for the freebie because (revealing my inner Scrooge) these are not cheap.

With grandparents happy to provide the general cardboard version on an annual basis, this is no doubt where we’ll be going next time.

But for now, the piano (which doubles as a mantlepiece) is sporting both a Lego droid and a picture of an angel with a trumpet.

Neither seems to be too concerned about the presence of the other. So far.