Bouncing back to childhood Christmas magic - Kevin Page
Just the other day, in a deep and meaningful conversation with Miss Four about the geopolitical state of the world and the environment, not, I was asked something that really mattered.
What did I want for Christmas?
It seems she and her brother, Master Two – both travelling the country in a caravan with their parents – had written to Santa some time ago with their specific requests.
Apparently, and don’t ask me how the brain of a 4-year-old can deduce this, there was some concern over how the big bloke in red would know where to deliver their presents seeing as they were moving around so much.
Ever resourceful, their mother, the Boomerang Child, suggested the two littlies write a list of what they wanted for Christmas and in it they could include a little sentence detailing exactly where they were going to be parked up on the big day.
A quick aside here: by all accounts their dad, Builder Boy, is working on an explanation of how he is going to build a chimney on the caravan when they are asleep on Christmas Eve and take it down before they wake up on Christmas morning.
He hasn’t been asked yet but little minds being what they are, he wants to be ready. Awwww.
The chat got me thinking about all the Christmas Days that have gone before, right from being a little boy in England when I earnestly sat down at a table and wrote a wish list in my best handwriting, through to today as a granddad of five innocent little cherubs.
Even though this year I racked up 51 years in good old NZ – we arrived December 10, 1974, to be exact – I still recall those early Christmases fondly.
Remember, of course, Christmas over there is mid-winter. Some years it snows. It gets dark early.
I recall going to school in the dark and coming home in the dark, with all the shops festooned with Christmas lights on the way to and from.
And while it was obviously cold and bleak – your shoes and socks were always wet from the melted snow on the footpaths – it was oddly magical.
That may have had something to do with the stages of our lives and those bringing us up.
We lived in a cul-de-sac on a new housing estate. Our neighbours included 11 similar families – stay-at-home mums in their mid-20s with a couple of kids while the dads went off to work.
I vividly recall all the mums in the months before Christmas getting together regularly and collecting the Player No 6 cigarette coupons. Everybody smoked back then.
A short while out from Christmas, a catalogue would arrive from the cigarette company with items you could purchase.
I’m sure you know what I mean. For example, 100 coupons would get you a toaster, that sort of thing.
Anyway, this particular year, the mums obviously pooled their coupons and, come Christmas Day, there were 22 of those bright orange, bouncy moonhopper things careering around the cul-de-sac in the snow. Every one of us kids had one.
That’s a picture that will stay in my mind forever.
Years later in New Zealand, Santa delivered adventurous things befitting teenagers embracing a more outdoors lifestyle.
A particular favourite one year was a proper archery set which was the flavour of the month for a while until we got fed up with piercing holes in a cardboard box in the back yard.
I recall we set off into the bush with my mum in tow – obviously, she’d left smoking and coupon collecting behind her as she stayed on our pace all the way down to the river behind where we lived.
It was there she etched her name in family folklore of the highest order by shooting an eel from the riverbank as we gasped in amazement at her prowess.
So now I’m 62 and my kids have kids and Mrs P and I are being asked what we want and we haven’t got a clue to be honest.
We sort of feel we’ve got everything we want and/or need.
Nice life, reasonably good health – although I do wish Santa would bring me a new wrist so I can play golf again and Mrs P keeps going on about one night of magic with Rod Stewart.
Not quite sure what she means. I’m thinking that must be the name of a CD he’s put out but I can’t seem to find it anywhere.
Anyway, life is good and we’re fine for presents, thank you very much.
Having said that, I know a 62-year-old who looks a lot like me who’d enjoy nothing better than bouncing down the road on Christmas Day on a shiny orange moonhopper.
If you can arrange a white Christmas, too, that would be just fine.
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