Christmas Then and Now

"Hello, my name is Bruce. What’s your name?"

"I’m called John. How old are you Bruce?"

"I’m four and a half and I’ll be going to school soon but I already go to Sunday school but I don’t go there every day but I’ll be going to school every day and I think I’ll like it. I hope they tell us things and let us sing like they do at Sunday school."

"And what sort of things do they tell you at Sunday school?"

"At Sunday school they told me the story of baby Jesus and how it’s his birthday tomorrow and I’ve seen pictures of him lying in a funny bed and his father wears funny clothes that look like dresses and his mummy has a circle around her head and so does baby Jesus and there are animals all around and there are other men looking at baby Jesus and I’m going to church with my Mummy tomorrow as a special treat and if I’ve been a good boy I might get a special present because my Mummy said that those men gave baby Jesus presents." All said with typical childlike innocence and wanting to keep talking to John.

"My Mummy said that after lunch we are going out to cut down a little tree to bring home and that I’m going to be allowed to ride my trike with the tip up tray and she’s going to put the tomahawk and some rope in the tray and I’m going to have to ride really fast to keep up with her because we’re going to be going a long way and I’ll be very important because I’ll have the tomahawk so she can cut down the little tree and then she’s going to tie the tree onto her bike and drag if home and I’ll be able to bring a really little tree home in my tip up tray." Then he had to stop to take a breath.

And that’s what happened seventy years ago to a little boy called Bruce.

He and his mother rode out past the Cessnock cemetery to where the Cessnock Correction Centre now stands and she cut down a gum-tree sapling that was a little taller than she was, tied it to the back of her bike and dragged it through the dust till they reached home. Despite losing a few leaves, the tree was hosed down and placed in a bucket full of dirt and decorated with coloured cellophane strips and small paper chains that he’d helped make draped around it. It looked quite wonderful to the little boy, who wanted to know if baby Jesus had a tree like that for his birthday. It was such an exciting day and there was tomorrow to look forward to.

Looking back, he couldn’t remember great fuss being made of the fact that this was Christmas Eve, but the fact that tomorrow was baby Jesus’ birthday made tomorrow a special day for some reason that eluded this youngster.

On the morning of what was to be the first Christmas he would remember, the tree had parcels laid at the bottom and there was a pillowslip with all sorts of things poking from the top. He was told that these were special presents from someone called Santa Claus as well as presents from Grandma, Grandad, Mummy and Daddy. He didn’t know who this Santa Claus was but he found that he had left him some special books. There was "Dumbo the Flying Elephant", "Timothy Mouse" and "Bambi" and his mother promised to read them to him at night before he went to sleep. "Bambi" and "Dumbo" became favourites and were read and reread countless times, not only by his mother, but also by himself when he was a little older. The pillowslip contained a bag of marbles, some lead soldiers, a game of bobs and some aeroplanes and ships made from lead, and these have lasted throughout the years and the lead plane and surviving lead battleship are occasionally resurrected and looked at with nostalgia with the, as yet unanswered, question, "Which grandson would be interested in these unsophisticated toys from a bygone era?" After looking at the presents and eating breakfast, the mother and the little boy walked off to the church where the story of baby Jesus was told once again for the children in the congregation and the minister talked for a long time for all the grown-ups. When they returned home it was to find that Grandma and Grandad had arrived and Grandma was cooking something special on the coal-fired stove in the kitchen. It was really special. Grandad had chopped the head off one of his chooks the day before and Grandma had plucked off its feathers in hot water. She had stuffed its tummy with seasoned breadcrumbs and was baking it, along with roast potatoes and pumpkin for our lunch. This really was a special meal because chicken was eaten only a few times a year as it took so long to prepare and, although lots of people had chooks in their back yards, not many men liked to chop off their heads and not many women liked the smell of the feathers when they were soaked in hot water.

After eating the meal, the Grandma had prepared a special plum pudding which was boiling away, wrapped in a calico cloth. Unwrapped and allowed to cool a little, custard was poured over it and our young boy was warned to eat it very carefully as there might be something special inside it. And there was. His teeth bit down on something flat and hard and when it was pulled it out, it was found to be a brightly skinning threepenny bit. And he was allowed to keep it. By the time he had finished, he had two or three threepences and two sixpences. He was rich! Then his Grandma and Grandad gave him the money that they had found in their plum pudding and told him that he had to save what he had found but that he could spend what they gave him on lollies and ice-cream.

And so time passed and the child grew to a man and had his own family and his children grew and left home and began their own families. Christmases came and went. Traditions within the family gradually changed and different emphases were placed on Christmas. It changed from a small celebration of a child’s birth, to a commercial undertaking of enormous expense, with the focus going from the meaning of Christmas to concentrate on a jolly, old, bearded man in a red suit. This was Santa Claus – bedecked in his red suit, with a sackful of gifts slung over his shoulder and driving reindeer through the snow, this was the symbol that greeted children for the last two months of the year.

And this brings us to Christmas 2010, seventy years later than Bruce’s first remembered Christmas.

Again there was a little five year old boy, looking forward to going to "Big School", a concept that hadn’t existed when his grandfather was a child. In those long-gone days there was no such thing as Pre-School leading to "Big" School, there was only Sunday School and School.

At the beginning of December, this little chap helped his mother bring the large box in from storage in the garage and the two of them gradually assembled a two metre tall artificial tree with fake green pine leaves and then began the process of decorating it with colourful baubles, ornaments, tinsel streamers and pulsing lights. The top was adorned by a large, gold ornamental star. When the tree was finally assembled to the mother’s satisfaction, she began to bring out presents that had been given by distant relatives and friends, with the admonition to her son that they were not to be touched till Christmas Day.

When they went shopping, they almost always encountered a rotund, be-whiskered chap in a red suit. This was explained as one of Santa’s "helpers". The real Santa would only visit all the good boys and girls on Christmas Eve, but the "helpers" were there to take the wishes of little boys and girls to him. There was always a decorated chair on which he sat and children would climb on his lap to have their photographs taken while they told him of their secret wishes for presents. This little chap in particular wanted a new bicycle as he had outgrown one of his number of tricycles. Christmas 1940 and 2010 Page 3

Gradually the pile of presents around the foot of the Christmas Tree increased and the colourful wrapping papers were reflected in the lounge-room windows as the lights flashed during the evenings before the parents went to bed. Excitement grew, fuelled by television programs and Christmas tunes and carols over the radio and television. Television broadcasts of previous Christmas celebrations were shown as the daily count-down of the number of shopping days till Christmas were announced with store advertisements for David Jones, Myers, Harvey Norman and other major retailers all showing photographs of expensive cameras, games, iPods, iPads, telephones, whitegoods and televisions as being ideal presents for both young and old.

In mid-morning, our little five year old rushed in to his parents, obviously in consternation, and he burst out with, "Daddy, I forgot to ask Santa for a bug catcher and I really want a bug catcher, so send him an SMS straight away before he leaves the North Pole!"

"But he might have already left," explained his mother who wondered how on earth she could buy a bug -catcher at such short notice.

"No he hasn’t! I just saw him on the TV and he’s still packing his sleigh."

So his Dad pretended to send an SMS to Santa.

Mum and Grandma then had to leave for some last minute shopping, so Grandad and Dad stayed at home with the two youngsters. Frantically visiting toyshops and department stores proved fruitless but at the last minute, one of them spied a bug-catcher in a specialty toy shop. It was the last one in stock so it was whisked away and hidden.

Well after the children were in bed and sound asleep, gifts began to appear from their hiding-places and were stacked in piles for the two children. No pillowslip would suffice as it was quickly filled with a whole variety of toys, games, pencils, electronic toys and DVDs. Then there were the larger items like pogo-sticks, a cricket bat, dolls, little girls makeup kits, handbags, lollies, chocolates and some clothes and swimmers. And that didn’t include the wrapped presents under the Christmas Tree.

Morning dawned on Christmas Day and the children began to stir. The parents and grandparents were all awake as the children went to their parents’ bedroom to drag them down to the lounge-room.

As our little five year old entered the lounge-room, the first item he saw was the bug-catcher perched on the top of the pile. "Daddy! Daddy! – He got your SMS after all!" and that was the first present he opened.

Only when all the presents had been opened and the presents distributed from beneath the tree did he suddenly ask, "Where did he leave my bike?" A search of the back deck and the front verandah was fruitless so the garage was opened, and there it was – resplendent in its bright colours and with trainer wheels already fitted.

Lunch was held with the extended family of almost twenty people seated around the long tables laden with food. There were platters of chicken, ham, prawns, turkey and numerous assorted salads, as well as drinks, sweets and nuts, with party hats and Christmas crackers for everyone. The youngsters had all brought one or two of their presents with them to show to the adults and the afternoon passed all too quickly.

Back at home, the presents were collected and put away. The wrapping papers and cartons were collected and put in the bins and the adults heaved sighs of relief as the children wearily wound their way upstairs to sleep. Another Christmas Day over. Would our five year old have memories like that of his grandfather or would it be just another day for receiving and opening presents?