Christmas Eve's past and present

Christmas always makes me nostalgic and brings mixed emotions with it. I have many happy and warm memories of childhood Christmases, and some lukewarm memories of adult Christmasses! As a child growing up in England my Mother tried her best to give me a good Christmas on the limited funds she had....but it's not the memories of gifts that have stayed with me, but of the days and events around the holiday that left deep impressions. Christmas Eve was always spent at home, just the two of us. I remember coming home from school and seeing the buses lined up on our street waiting to transport happy families going to see the Pantomime at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle (our major city). The groups going that night would be from the local 'Working Men's Club', a social club located across the road from our house. Members of the club with their wives and children all excited to be going to see 'live' theatre.....and of course Pantomime was/is a big thing in British entertainment traditions. Sometimes I would feel a twinge of envy that they were going on Christmas Eve, but I also knew that within a few days I would be going to the same performance with my Mother, my Aunt and cousin....so I still had that to look forward to! On Christmas Eve we would sit and listen to music. Play records by Mother's favourites, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby etc, and always Christmas music of course! My personal favourite was Jimmy Durante singing 'Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer'. We would then listen to Carols on the radio and start preparing Santa's plate of goodies......homemade mincemeat pies and a glass of Sherry! Then it was time for me to go to bed. Stockings were hung above the fireplace. I used one of my own knee high stockings. Miraculously it would be hanging at the foot of the bed when I woke up the next morning! Strange that I always had to be woken up on Christmas morning! I have never been a morning person....even as a child! All my gifts would be around the bed, and Mother would sit on the bed watching me unwrap them all. I wonder if she ever knew or suspected that I had found her hiding place for the gifts?! Always behind the huge wardrobe in the bedroom where there was just enough space for a thin person to squish in.....and there they would be piled, already wrapped of course! Christmas Day Dinner was spent at my favourite Aunt's with my cousins, after first visiting Grandparents, and then it was off to family friend's for Tea Time.....sandwiches, cakes and assorted goodies, more gifts, then the adults would go to the local pub for a few hours, leaving us kids (me and the friend's three sons) with the Grandmother who lived with them. Boxing Day (day after Christmas) always meant an evening at the movies (or "Pictures" as they are known in the UK) and once again it was with my Aunt and cousins. This was the same pattern for years, barely changing even as I moved into the teenage years and the only change became me going out with friends on Boxing Day! There were one or two not so happy Christmas's growing up. I was in hospital for two of them, but the nurses and staff tried to make it as happy as possible, so even though I wasn't at home with family, I was with a lot of other kids as it was a children's hospital. After coming to Canada there have been many changes in patterns to my Christmas, before getting married, since being married, and again as we moved house and locations several times! For the past twelve years it has become our custom to go to a Christmas Eve party held at the parents home of my sister-in-law, then Christmas Day at my brother and sister-in-law's house. I enjoy it all once I get there and into the warmth and jollity of it all, and especially watching the kids open their gifts......but deep inside me just wishes I was home, in front of a fire listening to Christmas music and the child within me is up at the window watching the excited families piling into the buses to transport them to the Pantomime, knowing that in a few days I will be going to the same Panto!