Its Xmas eve, and Ive just finished listening to the carols from Kings College and baking some vegetables, and reflecting that Xmas does not get easier, in fact perhaps gets worse. A feeling of great loss. But I don’t want to join anyone for Xmas, and decided just to be here and get on with things. Im managing to do so a little but this overwhelming negative feeling makes it very difficult. I am better with people, but don’t want to join them just for the sake of not being alone. But I think I was alone last Xmas here wasn’t I and I don’t think it was so bad? So it is worth, as I am working on family history, seeing whether by recalling past Christmases I can sort out my problems.

What do I remember of childhood Christmases? Great excitement, a very special time. The preparations, the anticipation the main thing.

Making Xmas decorations – lots of crinkly paper made into multicoloured paper chains. A real Xmas tree, with always the same decorations – real candles in increasingly elderly slightly rusted holders, tinsel, and a few fragile balls, some of which got broken each year. Parcels put under the tree, but not our presents. These were in a pillowcase left at the bottom of our bed.

The sending and receiving of Xmas cards. I don’t remember ever just being included in our parents cards. I had my own. I don’t think I made them. But I sent many. Part of this was in order to receive a lot in return. They got counted. And I hoped always to outdo Barbara in the ‘Xmas Card Popularity Stakes.’ Then there were the presents to be bought. I don’t know whether I saved money for all these activities or was given some .But I prided myself in giving my own presents. The quid pro quo was that I would in return receive presents. I cant remember however any of the presents I bought, except a vague memory of little memo pads – funds were very limited. It was the gesture that counted.

I don’t remember participating in the food preparation, but our mother made separate mincepies and Xmas cake for Peter and me because we didn’t like candied peel. The ‘tickey’ or was it ‘tickies’ put in the Xmas pudding were part of the ritual. And although I didn’t really like Xmas pudding I always had a little in the hope of acquiring a coin.

Presents were wrapped in the wrapping paper kept from previous years, so the unwrapping always had to be done carefully in order to preserve as much as possible, especially if the paper was particularly nice.

For weeks before one knew presents were being bought, so there was fun in waiting for the house to be empty of adults, in order to climb up on a chair and feel shapes at the top of the wardrobe, or at the back of shelves in order to try and work out what they might be. But I have no memory of ever being asked what one would like, or of having any idea what one might get, unless ones scrounging around beforehand had provided a clue.

There was a wish to stay awake in order to get hold of ones pillowcase early but it seldom worked. In the morning one by one parcels were pulled out and unwrapped. The important thing was to have an array, no matter how small or insignificant. Quantity was what mattered, and I don’t remember ever being disappointed. Everything was exciting and a treat. Only two memories of what the presents were, and both related to the men in the family – my father and brother Peter. One year I got a blue plastic hair clip from Peter, and was very touched because I knew he had bought and chosen it himself. His usual habit was one of indifference, so our mother chose and bought things he could give each of us. My other memorable present may not in fact be a Christmas present. It was a pressed flower from my father posted from wherever he was in Africa during the war. It was a little red flower and was sent specially to me and for many many years was incredibly precious. I put it, in the paper in which it had come in a book, Shakespeare I think, or possibly one of our mother’s poetry books – Keats or Tennyson perhaps. And it remained important that it was not damaged. But eventually its end must have come.