HAVE A VERY IRISH CHRISTMAS. BY SANDRA HARRIS.


 

HAVE A VERY IRISH CHRISTMAS.

BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Ah, it’s that time of year again. Christmas is just around the corner and, to celebrate, I thought I’d share with you all a list of my favourite festive traditions. Bear in mind, they might be traditions I remember from my own long-distant childhood or ones I’ve created with my own kids over the years, but, either way, there’ll be a lot in here you’ll probably recognise.

That’s because there’s something very special and particular about an Irish Christmas that every Irish person understands. We have our own way of ‘doing’ Christmas that mightn’t be all that materially different to the way other countries do it, but which, with a few tweaks, will be instantly recognisable to native Irish people as being intrinsically Irish.

If for some reason an Irish person can’t get back to Ireland in time for ‘the Christmas,’ his or her relatives will go to great lengths to make sure they get a little bit of Ireland in the post well in advance of the Big Day.

The box of Barry’s Teabags, the Tayto crisps, the Cadbury’s selection box, the box of Lemon’s Sweets, the tin of Roses, even the Denny’s sausages and rashers, will be sure to bring a tear to the eye of the exile as they cook the big fried breakfast in Australia or Canada on Christmas morning.

Anyway, the list, the list. Here we go, and watch out for your own favourites in here too.

1.      The Father Ted Christmas special, on at 9pm every Christmas Eve on RTE 2. This wasn’t around for my own childhood, but my kids and I wouldn’t miss it for a truckload of Rowntrees’ Jelly Tots tubes. ‘It’s Ireland’s biggest lingerie department, I understand.’

2.      The tubs of Celebrations, Miniature Heroes, Quality Street and the aforementioned Cadbury’s Roses still sitting around the place till June. Perfect for pecking at, lol.

3.      The festive cartons of Kimberley, Mikado and Coconut Creams biscuits that they don’t make anymore. I still have a few of the cartons stuffed with bills, appliance instruction manuals and other boring shit…!

4.      The smell of a real pine Christmas tree, and being the one who got the seat nearest the tree when the Big Christmas Day Fillum came on. Watching the lights twinkling on and off, especially as it got dark, was magical.  

5.      Christmas jumpers! Also, buying ‘something nice’ to wear on Christmas Day.

6.      Going to Midnight Mass at 10pm(!!!) on Christmas Eve and seeing what everyone else was wearing.

7.      The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992): still the best version of Dickens’ ghostly classic!

8.      The Guinness Ad: ‘Even at the home of the black stuff, we dream of a white one. Happy Christmas.’ When this would come on the television a couple of days before December the twenty-fifth, you knew it was Christmas. Sadly, the magic of this ad has been totally devalued by the fact that they now stick it on the telly in November. November…! I ask you.

9.      The Late Fillum. I’ve seen so many brilliant films over the two weeks covered by the Christmas edition of the RTE Guide: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Frenzy, Marnie, Psycho, Ryan’s Daughter, Another Time, Another Place, Doctor Zhivago and so on and so on.

10.  The absolute quiet on the streets when you go to bed on Christmas Eve Night.

11.  Leaving out a mince pie for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph and then scoffing it yourself. The mince pie, that is, not the carrot. Never the carrot…!

12.  Santa’s sleigh being ‘tracked’ across the sky on the Christmas Eve weather forecast on the News.

13.  Cribs and Nativity scenes in churches and the peaceful twinkling of Christmas tree lights in an empty church when you pop in to light a candle. Also, the Animal Crib at the Mansion House in the week before Christmas. We never miss a chance to see a sad donkey, two sad sheep and a sad goat crammed miserably together in a simulated manger situation…!

14.  Taking my now grown-up kids to see Santa when they were little. Nothing says Christmas quite like queuing for hours in a crowd of harassed parents and cranky kids to pay a fortune for a photo with the department store ‘Santy’ and a crappy present that broke apart before you left the shop …

15.  The Nativity scenes on the Angelus on RTE One, just before the Six-One News.

16.  Top of the Pops on Christmas Day telly around lunchtime and the TOTP2 Christmas Special the week before Christmas, featuring the music of: Slade, Wizzard, Greg Lake, East 17, Jona Lewie, Boney M, Johnny Mathis, Mike Oldfield, Kate Bush, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney, The Flying Pickets, Mariah Carey, Chris Rea, The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl and loads more. My favourite Crimbo telly show, along with any episode of The Royle Family featuring the festive season. Remember the birth of Baby David, and Dave trying to defrost the massive turkey in the bath?

17.  The Twelve Pubs of Christmas! I never did this myself, but it was always fun laughing at the daft-looking drunks puking their guts up on the street…

18.  Christmas markets! Grossly overpriced but lovely to look around while swigging mulled wine and gobbling down crepes made by a cranky German woman with a moustache...

19.  Secret Santa. I literally know not one single person who was ever happy with the gifts they received from a Secret Santa but you’ve absolutely gotta do it. It’s tradition!

20.  Crying one’s eyes out at emotional reunion scenes at the airport on the News as people flood back into Ireland for ‘the Christmas.’ Then, crying again when they all go back to Canada, America or Australia a week or so later, their bags stuffed with goodies from their mammy’s kitchen cupboards.

21.  The open fire being lit in the sitting-room for the whole two weeks of the Christmas period. The rest of the winter you’d be freezing your arse off because your parents weren’t made of bloody money, but at Christmas you were guaranteed to be nice and toasty.

22.  Christmas Carols. Nothing screams a good old-fashioned Dickensian-style Christmas like a few bars of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen…’

23.  The Advent Calendar.

24.  Presents! I’ve always loved receiving books as gifts, as I’m a total bookworm, but the strangest book I’ve ever been given for Christmas was an old volume of something called Practical Bacteriology, while my sister was gifted a similar volume, this time Inorganic Chemistry. Neither of us was ever remotely scientifically minded, which was the funny part.

25.  TK Lemonade, banned for the rest of the year, but allowed in moderation at Christmas.

26.  The old concertina-style decorations. God, I miss them! They feature in the Father Ted Christmas Special and they’re exactly as I remember them from my own childhood.

27.  Eating your selection box for breakfast on Saint Stephen’s Day. (December 26th, for the benefit of the non-Irish!)

28.  Seeing the gorgeous Santa’s Grotto in the GPO on O’Connell Street.

29.   Christmas booze! Wine and a nice bottle of Baileys for me, thanks, Santa.

30.  The BBC do a nice line in Christmas Ghost Stories, as Christmas is the perfect time for a creepy tale of the supernatural. Whistle and I’ll Come to You my Lad from 1968 starring Michael Hordern will put the willies up you big-time, trust me.

31.  Getting post on Saturday and Sunday on the last two weekends before Christmas. It’s still mostly bills, but there will usually be a few cards in there too.

32.  The Christmas soaps! I don’t watch them much myself anymore, but I can well remember Christmases where the most exciting things to happen took place round the Christmas dinner table at the Queen Vic in Albert Square.

Well, that’s about everything I can think of for now. Thanks for reading and have an absolutely magical Christmas yourselves!






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