Christmas morning who can forget? That empty pillow sack I hung at the end of my bed last night is now full to overflowing. Wow! – Christmas gifts in abundance. Always, at pride of place, was that very large blown up balloon stuffed into the top of the case like a bubblegum popping from the mouth of a wide-eyed child. Underneath that, there was the huge cellophane bag of multi-colored popcorn. Tucked tightly into the bottom 1/3 of the case, were those longed for, high value presents. Who cares it was full and it all created such a wonderful feeling of surprise and suspense. I remember being so excited one Christmas morning about that sack being full of presents, that I shook Tom awake and we went dreary eyed into Mum and Dad’s bedroom, only to be told to go back to bed as it was only 2:00am. Oh No! Not another sleep until Christmas. Now presents in those days were usually small, as was our weekly allowance that had to be saved up carefully to buy each member of the family their special gift. Let’s see – $7.70 divided by the 7 other members of the family, meant $1.10 to spend on each person. Some years, you would plan to save money on the cotton handkerchief for dad , just so you could splash out and buy a much-needed colored plastic sugar bowl for mom. Just what I always wanted were the words I heard but you know, I never grew tired of hearing my mum say them in that almost believable way – every Christmas morning. Now, no one was allowed to open their presents alone. So, we all traditionally gathered on Mum and Dad’s bed with our full pillow cases at the side to open our presents from Santa and our siblings. Most arrivals were attended by age, from youngest to oldest. Bag-of-Bones David” and Sleepy-Head Maggie were usually the last to arrive and join mum sitting up in that pink frilly nightie and Dad lounging and relaxed with his checkered flannelette PJs. The present opening sequence would go round and round. Each time picking out a present but always being careful not to select the ones from Santa too early these always seemed to be the better value gifts. Still, it was a lovely joyous and rather protracted event that you wished would never end. One year as we opened our gifts, Dad spoke to us all and said that he felt very strongly that we should each give one of our presents to another family he knew who had no Christmas gifts. What’s this? I thought – giving one of our precious presents to others? How cruel particularly at Christmas! Yes Peter particularly at Christmas. A lesson in giving a lesson in life. Another unusual paradox was that the tighter the financial situation at home the better the presents. When life was tough with money scarce and situation critical, Dad would come home with the most wonderful gifts as if in defiance of our plight. Tom and me played with those remote controlled cars for weeks and will never forget the generous thought behind them. We just could not believe how good life could be and this was just round one. See, our extended family would gather every Christmas afternoon at Wavell Heights, where our grand parents lived. It was a time to catch up with our riotous cousins and of course round two of jocks, socks and handkerchief gifts. Still, you knew that it was time to be quiet and absolutely still when you heard those words My fellow subjects… The Queen of England was always an expected quest at our family gathering, even if she presented poorly in those various shades of grey and tended to roll slowly from bottom to top when the horizontal hold on my grandfathers old TV was not working properly. A royal Christmas indeed.
