I recently came across a couple of old photographs from Christmases past. When I was a kid, my family often got together with the families of our Irish friends for Christmas eve to share Irish whiskey, snacks and lots of good cheer. Somehow the night always came to an end with everybody sitting around the floor singing - usually into a tape recorder for Grandma Fay back home in Ireland or my Grandma Coulthard back in England. I loved sitting around the rug in a big semi-circle, wrapped in love and security and hoping that each and every Christmas time would always be like this. After all, that's what it was all about - being with family and the people I love.
Oh yeah, it was fun to get presents too. For years my sister Vicky, a die hard tomboy, got a cowboy suit for Christmas, complete with holster and badge. My presents varied. One year I got a nurses kit, even though I hated blood and hospitals. What I really wanted was an artist's kit. The following year I got a box of 100 Crayola crayons laid out side-by-side in a colorful array. Although they were beautiful, somehow, I knew real artists didn't color. They painted. So, the next year I asked for paints for Christmas and this time I got a box of water colors and a couple of paint-by-number kits. I was sure that real artists didn't pant by number either.
Somewhere along the way, I kind of gave up asking for anything in the way of art supplies and made do with what I had. Instead, I received books, a blacklight poster of butterflies, plants, clothes and lots of other things I loved and wanted. I knew my parents sacrificed much to get us nice gifts and I appreciated every one of them, tied up beautifully with a pretty ribbon and Christmas giftwrap. What I remember most, I guess, is the love that went into each and every Christmas. The presents may be gone now, but the memory of all that love still remains, wrapped around me like a cozy quilt on a frosty winter night.
