Now the season of goodwill is upon us, let’s hear a true Christmas story from each of you I’ll start you off…. From being three years old, I spent every Christmas Eve looking up our chimney, waiting for Santa to come down and deliver my present. Sure enough, my present was there on the hearth every Christmas morning, usually inside a pillow case. But I never saw Santa, although my mother insisted he had been and I had missed him. When I was eight, I sneaked downstairs and spent all Christmas Eve looking up the chimney. At about 5 o’clock on Christmas morning, I heard a slight noise up the chimney and peered upwards. Alas, no Father Christmas, just a massive piece of soot into my left eye! That’s when I stopped believing!
Can't remember anything strange or odd at the moment. As a child I never questioned Santa's delivery service, it was just a very happy time for me, and that's how I want my childhood memories to remain.
When I was a child, Christmas Day always followed the same pattern - we kids getting the parents up at about 7.00AM and asking if we could go downstairs to see if Santa had been. Dad leading the way, opening the door at the bottom of the stairs just a little so that only he could look through it before announcing "No he's not been". We pushed past him and our eyes filled with wonderment at the piles of presents. After breakfast we would go to our grandparents who lived a couple of miles away (I remember one year there was so much snow we had to walk). More presents at my grandparents before the big turkey dinner around 1PM (my Granny wanted to have everything done before the Queen's speech). Grandad pouring way too much brandy over his Christmas pudding and falling asleep in his chair afterwards (he always bought a huge tin of Quality Street each year and there were never any coconut ones in them - how strange ). Queen's speech at 3.00 followed by the blockbuster film - often James Bond - and then my Granny would start making sandwiches and filling the table with home made biscuits, pavlova, trifle. Watching the Christmas special (usually Morecambe and Wise or the Two Ronnies) and then all of us playing cards for coppers until late. Ah happy days
