CHRISTMAS PRESENTS
We've looked at the 1942 decorations, trees and cooking over the last two weeks and to us they were exciting because we knew they were the run-up to the main event, Christmas Eve and the interminable fight to go to sleep and waken up to find our presents. I can still clearly remember lying in bed with my brain racing and desperately hoping for sleep. Of course it always came in the end and we woke up to our Christmas world.
In those days, the 'front room' was only used on high days and holidays, at other times it was out of bounds. This was where the Christmas tree was and the mince pies and whisky we had left for Santa. We knew that no matter how early we got up, there would be a good fire in the grate, the mince pies would have vanished (and the whisky!) and I admit that I always wondered how Santa had got down the chimney with the fire lit. I think we still half believed he existed and any doubts were put to one side in case it affected delivery of our presents. We never had Christmas stockings, even in those hard days it was a pillow case. The major part of the contents was food, we got fruit, sweets, chocolate and useful things like knitted socks, hats and scarves. If we were really lucky we got small toys and perhaps one major present. I can't remember all the wartime presents, no doubt because they were so thin on the ground. The one that sticks in my mind most was the giant Meccano set I got immediately after the war. Like all wartime presents it was second-hand, other presents would be home made because there was virtually nothing in the shops. I got a wooden scooter one year quite obviously made at father's works but a good one for all that. They must have turned a blind eye to the use of valuable time and resources and many a doll's pram was born at General Gas! Mother would be on hand to make sure that we didn't eat all the goodies at once and make ourselves poorly.
The time of the Christmas dinner depended on when we expected father home from work, the war effort didn't stop for Christmas. Eventually he would arrive and we would all sit down to the best meal of the year. I still don't know how my mother and father managed to get all this together, presents, goodies and food. We were definitely not well-off but somehow they scraped the money and resources together to make sure we had one good day when we were warm, well-fed and excited by our presents. That feeling has never left me, it was magic, so different than our daily lives. I suppose it was made even more special because of the deprivations of rationing and shortages and also because for at least one day we forgot about the war.
I am forced to contrast our wartime experience with what I see today. I have a friend who is quite well-off and once had a conversation with him about whether this made it harder to rear his children because if kids know you are poor there isn't much point in pestering for stuff, they know it won't work. He agreed that this was the case. I often wonder if modern children reared in a moderately well-off family, surrounded by the temptations of advertising and well-stocked shops haven't been seduced by our affluent world. We've all heard the expression 'pester power' and most of us have seen it at work on parents who naturally want to please their kids. I still remember the shock I got one year when I visited young friends on Christmas Eve and saw the size of the piles of presents they were stacking in the front room, it was like a corner of the postal sorting office! I knew that at the time they were not in funds. I couldn't say anything of course but reflected on something a wise friend once told me about the difference between giving a sincere gift for a good reason and buying friendship. Are we in danger of buying peace and quiet when we give in to pester power?
It's not as easy as that I know. There is the minefield of playground rivalry, who got the best/most expensive present, who got the greatest number. They tell me that this applies during the year to the current fashionable brand of clothing, if you haven't got the 'in' label you are inferior. We seem to have infected our children with the modern measure of worth, the ability to consume. Kids aren't stupid, they see the media stories about enormous salaries and bonuses. The celebrity culture is based on possessions and conspicuous consumption. Consider the ridiculous lengths couples go to when planning a wedding.
I know that I sound terribly negative, and perhaps I am. It may be that there is something I don't understand about the modern world. Be that as it may, I doubt if modern children have a better experience of Christmas with their piles of presents than we did in 1942 with our bars of chocolate, knitted socks and home-made toys. One thing is certain, our parents weren't saddled with a burden of debt afterwards because it was a cash economy, you paid for things before you got them and it may be that we benefited from this freedom they had.
After all this be absolutely certain that I believe that Christmas, besides being a meaningful religious festival to many, is mainly for the kids. We all want the best for them and will move heaven and earth to make sure they have a special day and I'm all for that. Modern advertising chases sales and profit and it may be that in that relentless pursuit they actually damage the concept of Christmas. The problem the parents face is steering a sensible path through what I think has become a bit of a minefield. It may be that I have strayed into the same minefield by raising my doubts. If so I apologise and hope you can manage to ignore the ramblings of a Crumbly and have the best Christmas ever. Be nice to the kids and each other but bear in mind that the statisticians tell us that Christmas is a peak time for family arguments and subsequent divorce. Avoid these at any cost!
A Merry Christmas to one and all!