Happy Christmas 2021 to everybody!

I wonder if anyone else managed to cut a finger on a cinnamon stick while making mulled wine? Only me, was it? Oh well, it could be worse.

The mulled wine was delicious, at any rate, and everyone was asking for the recipe. I don't have a recipe, it is a process of pouring in the red wine, adding a dash - or is that a splash? - or two of port, some red (Irish) lemonade, slices of orange, cloves and the aforementioned cinnamon sticks. Warm everything up, turn off the heat and let it "mull" for an hour, then re-heat gently.  Delicious.

Mind you, drinking mulled wine at a Christmas market under a starry sky, feet turned to icicles in the frosty air, is what I call enjoying the run up to Christmas. I love the time from the first Sunday in Advent, usually the last Sunday in November, to Christmas Eve. I remember how excited the children were when we lit the first candle in the the Advent wreath. They would start to count off the days until school holidays. The Advent calendar was another hit, opening those doors the height of fun, even though there were usually only very indifferent chocolates behind them. 

As I write this, we are almost there. One week more and it will be Christmas Eve. I will be celebrating with family in Germany where Christmas Eve is the big day and the presents are distributed. Santa doesn't come, of course. St. Nikolaus comes on December 6th, although he does not bring the main presents. He is not the fat, jovial figure of the advertisements. He is a bishop with a bishop's mitre and crozier and he is quite slim, as befits a bishop, I guess. Children learn that he was a bishop in Myra in present day Turkey. Sometimes he comes with Ruprecht, who carries a stick to beat naughty children, although this is pure legend, whereas Nikolaus really did exist and was good to the poor.

Whatever you believe in, Christmas is a time of good will, a time for meeting up with friends, for visiting older family members.

I wish all my readers a peaceful, happy Christmas!

Christmas Cards

Since the beginning of December I have been getting a trickle of Christmas cards from friends and family. This is a lovely tradition, I always think, and it is such a pity that with the popularity of social media it is dying out.
As an ex-pat, living in Germany, I was often starved for news of friends who wrote once a year at Christmas and updated me on their lives. Even more valuable were those who gave me a thumbnail sketch of what was going on in the country they were living in. Of course, you had the one-liners who simply wrote on the expensive Christmas card "we are all well" and added a pious hope that my family were equally healthy and happy. But even these few lines meant that they had thought about me and my family for a couple of minutes at the very least: they had to pick a card to send from the pile they had bought  and in order to write something, they had to call me to mind. I am a great believer in the power of thought or prayer if you want a better word. I remember when I was in hospital following surgery for breast cancer that I could almost feel the get-well wishes pouring out to me.
But I digress. So here I am thinking about the niceness of receiving Christmas cards and the fun of reading how those friends and family who only contact me once a year are doing. How was it all those years ago, when receiving a letter at any time was a big event? When the post coach with its four horses plied between the cities and towns and delivered news of loved ones far away?In those days, far away really meant just that. Many Irish people who emigrated to the USA never came home again. All they and their families had were these letters, cards and well wishes, all of which were read over again until the next time.
I sometimes think that we kept in touch to a much better extent before the advent of email, whatsapp, skype, etc. Letter-writing is an art, of course, and there were people who, because of the lack of education or abilities, simply could not write a very coherent account of themselves. Nowadays they'd simply send you an emoji - enough said!
I still write Christmas letters to friends or family members who I don't get to see very often. These are getting fewer, though, I have to admit. This is partly due to the fact that the cost of travelling has really come down over the years, and let's face it, it's much nicer to see people face to face than to write to them.
This year I have written all my Christmas letters and sent off all my cards except the very local ones. I hope I have made a few people as happy as I am to hear from them.

Happy Christmas Everyone

A very Happy Christmas to all my readers!  I hope the festive season is filled with joy for you.

I will be spending Christmas with my daughter and her family - I have two boisterous grandchildren to keep me occupied!  It is a wonderful time for children and always takes me back to my childhood in Ireland.  We didn't have a lot of material things but we certainly knew how to enjoy what we did have.  My mother made the Christmas cake and the Christmas pudding in November and I can well remember the excitement of watching her mixing in the ingredients. If I close my eyes now I can get that unmistakable whiff of whiskey - a very rare thing in our house as none of my parents drank much alcohol.  Us children were allowed to stir the pudding and make a wish - I don't recall what I wished for or if any of my wishes ever came true.  More likely I had forgotten about them by the time Christmas arrived.  On Christmas night the neighbours came to play cards with my parents and we were allowed to stay up late which was a treat in itself.

I'm not going to say that things were better or worse long ago.  We were often told by the older generation that we "never had it so good".  Looking back now, I have to smile a little - we didn't even have television until I was a teenager but we listened avidly to the radio.  Radio Luxembourg was the station for pop music and innovative quiz shows!  I think Christmas is still a very special time and from what I have observed when walking round the city, children are still awed by the lights and the Christmas tree and all the trappings.  Long may it last!

God bless you all this Christmas!