Someone recently asked about my favourite Christmas memory ever - and to keep it under 100 words - and it got me thinking. I love the season and with so many memories to choose from it was a tough slog through my memory-bank.
There are the standard memories that stand out from a child’s point
of view, like the time when I was five and woke up to my very own Barbie camper van, or the following year when I woke up to find my very own Barbie House - to this day I have no idea where my parents found it because it wasn't your standard house, it was a mansion. It
was not in any
catalogue I had seen, and I was up on my Barbie gear so I knew Santa thought I
was special.
As lovely as those are, it was neither.
My favourite
Christmas memory would have to be when I was at school in England, in 1992. I can't believe it was 20 years ago now. I
had never celebrated Christmas in England before, but it felt like I was home
because of my mother’s two sisters, and my cousins. My other cousins from New Zealand, whom I happened to have spent
Christmas with in their home country in 1988, were also in England at the time (my mother had three
sisters and two brothers, all spread out around the globe) so we were quite a large group that year. I remember looking about the sitting
room at one point during the holidays, surrounded by my mother's family - my family - wondering if I would ever get to spend Christmas with all of them again. It was a very special time, and I knew then, in those hours, how exceptionally rare that moment was, and I cherished
it, placing it into a corner of my mind forever as a pivotal moment in my life.
You need to
understand my mother’s family – they hail from Liverpool and as everyone knows,
Liverpulian’s have a wickedly dry sense of humour. We were not short of laughs
at any point over the holidays, we had fun. I did miss my parents, brothers and my father's side of the family that I grew up with in Canada, but knew I would have many Christmases ahead with them, so I wasn’t too torn up about missing Christmas at home. I went back to school on the 2nd of January, happy and content, and full of great memories of a wonderful Christmas - this is one of my favourite Christmas memories.
Fast forward 19
years to last Christmas. I went back to England, but not for the Holidays. My
mother’s youngest sister had been sick. She left us all behind on the 14th
of December, and we buried her on the 23rd. And as I looked about
the sitting room on Christmas Day, it was clear to myself and others someone was missing. But before
the melancholy struck we pulled out some pictures – and there they were – the
memories of a Christmas that felt like yesterday. That joyous Christmas when we
were all together, when we were all happy, and when we were all healthy and
walking somewhere upon this earth.
When I think of
my happiest Christmas memory I think of Christmas 1992. It is always the one
that comes to mind. And it will live in my memory forever.
