Christmas Club

Hey, hey, it's Christmas Club day! i want to offer grateful thanks (and a mince pie or two) to everyone who said "yes!" when I put forward the idea of bringing back Christmas Club. You made me sit down with my notebook and freshly sharpened pencil even though I'd had a mid week panic. I couldn't think of a good story, every one I tried to conjure kept slipping away, or I remembered that I'd told it before. Though maybe, now I think of it, that's the best bit about Christmas? We can do the same thing over and over again, a hundred times over, every year, and it never gets old. And every time we do it, we honour the times we've done it before. We remember.

So I decided to take my own advice and pick up that pencil and remember.

At Christmas we...

wrap up the gifts we have chosen with love and care and we cast our minds back to presents from the past

* There was the Christmas my little sister ruined her new toy kitchen mincer (it had a handle and a big mincing screw and everything) on its first outing. With a wine gum. She put a sticky, chewy sweet through her mincing machine. Well wouldn't you try to mince a wine gum on Christmas morning if all your Mum offered was a slice of white bread? I guess she was making stuffing at the time. That mincer never minced again.

* Or the time Grandma asked my little brother what he would like and he said "Ask a silly question" . Which isn't really the reply a kind, list making Grandma has a right to expect a week before Christmas. It took my Mum a minute to rally and then step in smoothly to explain that it was actually the title of a book he was after; and not a scurrilous slight to her tentative enquiries. Ask a silly question became the standard answer to any kind of query that Christmas.

* And then there was the morning a neighbour called in unexpectedly early - you know, before her present had been wrapped? "Wooden bowls," my Mum mouthed at me behind her back. I ran, i wrapped, I handed the parcel over and Mrs f accepted. End of the week, my Mum decided to finish sorting out the presents. "I thought I had more wooden bowls," she said. "I bought them specially and I had one for Mrs G and one for Betty and one for..." The next thing she heard was my hand being clapped over my mouth. I'd wrapped the whole lot. At once. All together. Happy bumper Christmas Mrs F. Hope you liked them. 

It's only as a grown up that I understand why my Mum looked like she wanted to cry that day. Just before she dug into her handbag for her shopping list, and started re adding names to the bottom of it again.

That's the thing about saying

At Christmas we

Sometimes you can see a story in a whole new light.

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! I've added a linky so you can be part of the Club and it's open for the next week, so you've plenty of time to come up with a post. I'm looking forward to it.

My photos this week are of a present Santa brought when Paddington Bear was popular the first time round. He had a duffel coat,yes, but my Mum made sure that Santa knew he should also have wellies and a suitcase and some warm clothes for our snow that winter. The scarf is an early example of Sian knitting.

And photographing Paddington has given me some idea for next week. I need to start writing again. Thanks for reading!