‘Although we had very little, we had everything’

 

Margo shares some Christmas memories with June McDonnell

 

“Some of my earliest memories of Christmas were when as a young child we lived on Owey Island. We believed it was the first place in Ireland that Santa visited because the wind blowing across the island powered the reindeers for the long night ahead. When Santa saw the whitewashed thatched cottages he knew he was in Donegal and worked his way all across the country from there.
“Christmas was always a magical time for us kids growing up, but what made it extra magical was that our father came home from Scotland for Christmas.

“Like a lot of other men in the area he had to go to Scotland for work and would come home three or four times a year, and Christmas was always one of those special times.
“While we looked forward to Santa’s visit, Dad’s visit put Santa’s in the ‘halfpenny’ place. He’d be teasing us by slowly taking little gifts out of his case, maybe a few pencils or box of crayons or a book or two, and always sweets and chocolate. He was like a magician taking the rabbit out of the hat!

“Another trick of his was the ‘mystery’ gift. This was usually a board game or a big jigsaw that he’d hide in the house and we children would have to find it. Whoever found it got to keep it but it had to shared with the other siblings.

“We lived in my granduncle’s house before we got our own cottage from the council in November, 1967.

“As Christmas was nearly upon us we set about decorating the new house for Christmas and my Dad’s much anticipated visit. The curtains went up, the furniture was moved in and nearer the time of his homecoming we decorated every nook and cranny with holly and ivy. Big sprigs of berried holly were placed behind every picture and coloured paper chains from one wall to the other.

“The big red candle was placed in the window but well away from the net curtains ensuring when lit it didn’t set the curtains on fire. Once darkness fell we lit the candle.
“According to legend it was to light the way for the Magi on their way to visit the baby Jesus. Of course, the Crib was very central to our Christmas celebrations. It was always given a place of honour on the shelf in the kitchen.

“We were so excited to have a sitting room now, which we never had before in the old house.

“The room was to be kept locked until Dad arrived. On the evening of his arrival Mam said she had a surprise for us and opened the sittingroom door. What met our eyes was unbelievable. There in the corner was an artificial christmas tree with just six lights. We were mesmerised when she turned on the lights. In our minds the Blackpool illuminations had nothing on our sitting room! We would only light the tree for a very short while every evening, as we believed the lights were very costly on the E.S.B bill.”

“On Christmas Eve the Christmas stockings my grandmother knitted for us would be hung at the end of our beds in anticipation of Santa’s arrival.The worry would be, had Santa got our letters in time? If there was snow or the ground was frosty would the reindeers slip and get hurt? Would Santa get stuck in our chimney?

“He would fill our stockings with little toys, trinkets, maybe a yo-yo, little wooden building bricks, a whistle or something similiar and always a mandarin orange. I wrote to Santa one year asking for a doll that I could keep forever. I was lucky and got my lovely doll. It was a Bear doll called ‘Molly’ and she wore a blue dress with white flowers.

“She was nursing her baby bear and when you hit a little switch the baby’s bottle in her hand moved up to the baby to feed her. I had that doll until I was 42!

“Shopping was also a big part of Christmas. There was a great atmosphere in the village. Some shops would be playing Christmas music or carols and others would have their windows decorated with Santa’s and cotton wool snow. Mam would head in to Kincasslagh to ‘Logues’ and ‘The Cope’s’ to get all the ingredients necessary for the ‘pot roast’ Christmas dinner, Dad’s favourite. The sponges, jelly and tin of fruit for the trifle were also purchased. The trifle was a big treat, something we got only at Christmas.

Continue reading in this year’s Ireland’s Own Christmas Annual