Christmas is definitely for kids!

Leading up to Christmas this year, I've felt absolutely no excitement at all. The magic seems to have vanished - still it's taken until age 38 to reach this conclusion, which is not bad...maybe it would be different if I had kids of my own.




I always said I'd never go away for Christmas but I don't think it'd be such a bad thing after all. Not that I have any awful relatives to escape from, it's
just that it's always the same thing every year and I'm bored with it. Gawd, I sound like a real bar humbug don't I? Please don't let me turn into my Dad!

I remember one Christmas Eve night when I was a child (I have no idea what age), but I needed to go to the loo and I was so scared of getting up in case I bumped into Santa! That memory is so vivid, yet I can't ever recall whether I did actually pluck up the courage or whether I managed to get back to sleep!




I've posted a few old photos of Christmas when I was young. Oh such good times they were! Every year Mum and Dad made it so great for us kids. A sack full of presents was always waiting for us at the ends of our beds - of course I thought Santa had left them at the time. We'd always drag the sack into the living room of the flat coz the bedroom we were in was freezing cold (we had no heating back then). After opening a sack full, we'd have breakfast and then later in the morning, we'd all open the presents under the tree. Christmas lunch was at my Nan and Grandad's who lived in the same road (my Mum's parents). In the afternoon, we went over to my other Nan and Grandad's in Rochford, where my Auntie, Uncle and three cousins would also gather. My Grandad was always the creative type, which was handed down to my Dad and also to me and he would always make something for us. In the pic, you will see a wishing well, but other years he also made a dalek, a train engine and a massive cracker, in which there were hidden presents.

When I was a liitle older, when my creative streak had been securely embedded in me, I took charge as the one who thought up ideas of how to entertain the adults. Afternoons then had switched to my Auntie Annette's so there were us five kids and a giant dressing up box. Of course, a lot of the time I had to actually make the stuff beforehand, such as hats, wigs and beards. The things we used to come up with:

* Dressing up as contestants on a Question of Sport including Willie Carson, John McEnroe, Giant Haystacks, Emlyn Hughes and Alex Higgins (see pic)
* Dancing and singing along to the Toy Dolls "Nellie the Elephant" (see pic)
* The Madness Mob - singing and dancing along to Madness
* Dressing up as Boy George and Marilyn - remember Marilyn?! (see pic)
* Performing our version of Cinderella. Me and Debbie as the Ugly sisters, Lee as the Queer fairy, David as the gay prince and Nicola as Cinders. How I knew so much as homosexuality
at such an early age, God only knows! (see pic)
* Creating my own Blankety Blank game

These years were just the best; they were so much fun and ones we'll never have again. Quite sad really.