Christmas Club

So, what do you say? Shall we Christmas Club today? I was feeling pretty festive last week after reading all the stories. I can't wait to see what we've got this time round. Mmm...I might have to open a seasonal tin of Quality Street here. Hazelnut in toffee, anyone?

Now I'm unwrapping that purple foil and I'm looking at it, thinking that's too pretty to throw away: surely I can make something with it. Because that's what we do in this family. We make things. And

at Christmas we

make presents.

Once, we made part of a present. And that part we were to give to ourselves, although we didn't know it at the time.

I must have been about seven, the others younger; and, as we sat there on Christmas Eve, willing ourselves to get tired, our Mum set a cardboard box down in front of each of us. We were to make shops, she said. Here's some wallpaper  for the walls and some felt for the floors. Make them look nice now.

So we worked on our shops, cutting and sticking, and before we realised, it was time for bed. The waiting was nearly done. As we climbed into our pyjamas we worried that we hadn't finished, that we had more bits to add, and our Mum said we mustn't think about it, Santa was coming and we needed to sleep, and the shops could wait until after Christmas. 

We slept, Santa came (though we didn't hear a thing), and we woke up to a pile of surprises. But what do you think? Right in the middle were the shops! Neatly finished off, they were, and tricked out to perfection with tiny scales and paper bags, and little scoops and a whole row of glass jars, full, of course. We had other presents (maybe that was even the year of last week's toy kitchen mincer), but if we talk now about our Christmasses in that house, my Mum always asks if we remember the shops. We do remember, that year we were a family of shopkeepers.

And that was to be the end of my story for this week. I had planned to tell more about the presents we have made over the years, but Nicky the doll, and her dresses, probably deserves a story of her own, I decided, so I went looking for a picture. I found this one:

which shows us, that year, in our special Christmas dresses and holding our new dolls in their long party dresses. All made by Mum. But when I looked more closely at this picture, I jumped. for there, in the corner, is the desk. You know the desk. Or you will if you've been following Me On Monday (right here) It's the one we took to Scotland at the beginning of the autumn, for that boy of ours to work at. I took pictures of him carrying it up the stairs to his flat. From the 1970's to 2014: isn't that the way it goes at Christmas? Little bit of then, little bit of now, all wrapped up together. I wouldn't have it any other way.

At Christmas we

remember. And record.

Like to give it a try? It's only a suggestion. Any story, any Christmassy post at all would be perfect. Come join our Christmas Club!