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Christmas is Coming…. Jimmy Kelly relates
And it appears to come earlier every year. Already
the big tree is up in O’Connell St. and is there for
two reasons: one to remind us that the great day
is approaching and secondly, that the shops in
town badly need our money. But even though the
very thought of Christmas strikes terror into the
hearts of a lot of parents, very few of us dislike the
period and festivities around it. It does give us the
feel-good factor; it is the one time of the year
when we suspend reality and while the lady of the
house usually has to put in the extra effort, she
can be sure, when the day is done that she has
made her family happy one more time.
So how will this Christmas differ from the festive
seasons of my young days? Well, for one thing we
were practically guaranteed snow and black ice.
For another, we didn’t have the choice of presents
the kids and teenagers have now. There were no
mobile phones, no i-pods, no televisions and very
few radios, or wirelesses, as they were then
called; any that did exist had to have two batteries,
one dry and one wet. The wet one was great
crack; it had to be charged at the local garage,
how often depended on how much the wireless
was used. Most homes kept a fully-charged spare
in case the original went dead in the middle of an
exciting programme.
The one big event was Mass on Christmas Day
and it wasn’t just one Mass: it was three, one after
the other and said by the same priest! Looking
back, (yes, it was the last century), one couldn’t
but feel sorry for the poor P.P. He had to do everything:
distribute Holy Communion, on his own, to a
Church packed to the rafters, with neither sight nor
sound of a Minister of the Eucharist; they were
well into the future. The Celebrant also had to
read the Lesson, no help from the congregation
there either and, of course, the Ceremony, including
the hymns, was in Latin. Compared to then,
priests of to-day have a handy number!
But for me, several lovely memories of those
Christmas Days remain. I particularly enjoyed the
pageantry of it all. The procession, with all available
altar-boys in their soutanes and crisp-white
surplices along with the Celebrant, would start a
short distance away at the Parochial House and
make its way to a beautifully decorated Church
festooned with ivy-covered wooden crosses to the
Altar embellished with berried holly. The choir,
schoolchildren and adults, made a special effort,
we would be practising for weeks beforehand and
the Latin hymns had a mystery all their own which
turned the occasion into a great theatrical spectacle.
On the day almost everyone had something new
to wear, a new suit, a new pair of shoes, jacket,
shirt or whatever. My dad had a struggle with the
studs in his shirt-collar, especially if it was new.
‘Och, sure my oul’ shirt will do me, who’ll be looking
at me anyway?’ He was probably right, it was
the middle of the night, the first of the three
Masses started at eight o’clock and we had a
three mile walk, but the women in our house, four
sisters and my mum, saw to it that he and the rest
of us would leave home well dressed and properly
presented. It was always nice to see again friends
and acquaintances home for the festive season,
they brought a liveliness not apparent for the rest
of the year; some brought cars, a scarce enough
commodity in a small Tyrone village, some even
new girl and boyfriends and some had more than
a hint of an English accent despite being only a
short time away. The first time I saw a wrist watch
was on the arm of a friend home from Birmingham,
it looked like an alarm clock with leather
straps but without the bells.
Presents? Oh yes, we got presents. I remember
getting Snakes and Ladders, Ludo and a pack of
playing cards. More often we got oranges or apples
and a few clods of turf stuffed into our stockings.
As a special treat the Christmas after her
husband died, my wife’s Mam hired a car to take
them all to Mass, a practise she kept up for many
years afterwards. What a lovely thrill for her three
children and what a typical motherly generous
gesture to compensate, however briefly, for the
pain of the loss of their father. The country was full
of mothers like that and thankfully still is.
Wishing everyone a happy Christmas I will finish
off with this familiar ditty:
Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat
Could you please put a penny in the old
man’s hat?
If you haven’t got a penny sure a halfpenny will do
And if you haven’t got a halfpenny,
then God Bless You!
Carol Service/Concert
With Church & School Choirs
In St. Paul’s Church
Tuesday 9th December at 7.30 pm