Christmas Eve ~ Oíche Nollag
It was important to get home for Christmas. You’d have presents for the family and your friends
Christmas Candles
The candles were special. There were all kinds of holders but you might use a turnip or a piggin, a tub with a handle on it.
Candles in the window were lovely, but very dangerous. People do it anyway but when the electric light came, switching on the light, it was safer. I remember being outside and seeing a candle in the window and it fell. By the time I got up to it, it had the pane broke. It fell against the pane.
The candles were lit on Christmas Eve, after the Angelus, but they would never be left burning all night. It was dangerous. We’d put them on in the morning and there was a race to see who was up first. You couldn’t leave them all night. It wouldn’t happen. They’d be burned out anyhow.
You’d put them up about six o’clock in the morning.
The candles were lit in memory of Mary and Joseph and no room at the inn. The candles showed that the house was a place where there was always room.
There was a story about not locking doors on Christmas Eve night.
A few years ago no-one locked doors but you wouldn’t want to be doing that now. It is a frightening thing not to lock doors nowadays.
There was something I heard, that you should always leave water in the house at night. It wasn’t an article of faith but I suppose it was just common sense; women getting up at night with small children. Lighting a candle and finding a match, to have water handy. It was just common sense. There is common sense in some of the old pishogues.
There was always a good fire made.
Christmas Day ~ Lá Nollag
You’re not supposed to go out on Christmas day. It was a dull day, Christmas day and Christmas night.
There would be the radio. We would play games, play cards, twenty-fives. And you could play rings where you had to throw the ring onto the board and see who could get a hundred and one. You could try for it. There was whist, or monopoly.
On Christmas day you didn’t have visitors. People would stay in their own homes.
I remember, we’d always get Santa Claus. And this day we were all anxious about it and he used to hide our stockings and a sister of mine, Agnes, the youngest one, we couldn’t see our stockings. We didn’t think he came. And at last we went upstairs looking where he hid them and she got weak, went head over heels with the excitement in getting them. They were ordinary stockings with the apple and all, and always a tin whistle and a little doll or something, and she was up running around. We all nearly got weak because we thought he didn’t come and we got shocked when he did come.
You still had to go out and milk the cows. It wasn’t a holiday for farmers. You always had your chores to do
You would not be seen in the town, soon after Christmas. You would not want to be seen in the town shopping for a while after Christmas. People might think you had nothing in the house.
Christmas Presents ~ Brontonnais Nollag
There would be priests here, and there would be a party for Christmas in the schools, and they’d give them a toy, and a packet of sweets. I looked out the window and I saw them pegging it at one another. When I was small, about their age, my brother would try his best to be beside this old man. He always had these white sweets in his pocket. They made it their business to be beside them. He’d give them the sweets, and they’d taste of tobacco and dust. We ate them and enjoyed them.
The Parcel from America
I remember the parcels from America, the smell of the parcel when it was opened. It was very special, that parcel. There was that smell of camphor to keep the moths away. The parcels would take a long time to come, I suppose.
There might be a couple of shirts or a suit of clothes. There could be something special in the line of jewellery for the mother. It was very special, that parcel, in our house anyway.
There might be sweets. They were better usually. I wouldn’t bother with them now but years ago they were lovely. There wouldn’t be many children who would turn down sweets. There wasn’t much variety then. There were small sweets, white ones.
There were families who would depend on the American parcel. There might be cash and clothes and that, especially for youngsters, clothes for children mostly.
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Continue on to Page 4: St Stephen’s Day ~ Lá an Dróilín