“‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”~ Clement Clark Moore.
As I hung the Christmas wreath on my front door this year, I tallied up the number of years I have done so. This will be our seventeenth Christmas in our homeand we have continued our families Christmas traditionsthroughout the years.
Some may find family traditions boring; I find them comforting and familiar and I look forward to repeating our old traditions each year and adding new ideas into our mix of celebrations when the fancy hits us.
One tradition that my mother repeated annually was to make her famous and much-loved-by-her-family Mince Pies every year.
I have continued making mince pies myself every Christmas myself, although I have always made the pastry using butter; Mum used lard.
This year I opted for a change and made my mince pies “justa lika Mumma use to make”, (as they say in the spaghetti sauce advert, however, my Mum wasn’t Italian, so perhaps that line isn’t appropriately used in this case!)
My Mum was a Cheshire born girl, with a Manchester born Mum whose entire family were Yorkshire born and bred. Mum’s very broad northern English accent was hard to understand at times (even for me, her own daughter!)I’m uncertain whether it is my maternal families trait, or a Yorkshire family trait, to religiously follow family traditions the way we do. Either way, it’s traditional, so we do it!
Being true to old tradition, this year I made my mince pies using lard, just as Mum always had. It’s such a simple recipe – 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 125 grams (4 oz) lard and 1/4 pint of water.
Mince Pies
In previous years I have been known to make my own fruit mince, (Mum called it “mince meat”) although this year, as time did not permit, I bought a very reliable, traditionally English brand of mince, which is almost a good as home-made.
There’s nothing like a mince pie made with pastry using lard to bring back memories of Christmases long gone, but not forgotten. And the best part of it all is that the new (old) version of lard pastry seems to be a hit with my family too!
Christmas Eve
Now, with food for tomorrow prepared, kitchen tidied, decorations hung and everyone in bed, in the words of Clement Clark Moore, I will bid you a “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”
During my recent visit to the Blue Mountains, the area in which I spent my earliest years, I paid a visit to a number of homes throughout the area that had played a significant role in my childhood days.
At one of the homes I found more than I had bargained for, as the home had a huge “AUCTION” sign attached to the front fence.
This home had belonged to the family of my best friend in fourth grade, Christine. Standing outside of the front gate of the house, after all of these years, the memories of childhood playtime came flooding back.
Christine’s house had seemed very old when I was a child; now the old house sat among the uncared for gardens looking for all the world as it had the last time I had played there, baring the neglect.
A quick visit to the real estate agent confirmed the house was vacant and I was given permission to explore the property.
Thirteen year old Adam (who accompanied me on the trip) was a tad wary of the old home, proclaiming it to be “spooky”. I assured him that the home was indeed old, although one of the friendliest homes you could ever wish for. No bad vibes at this property!
Adam and I, with my trusty camera in hand, explored the front back and both sides of the garden, which to my amazement looked almost exactly as I remembered it.
Had anyone cared for this home at all since Christine’s family had moved away, I wondered?
Stairs to the Back Door
The rickety old stairs, leading up to the back door looked the same. The wide verandas around three sides of the home, where Christine and I would play together on rainy days hadn’t changed a bit.
Would you use this tub?
Underneath the back of the house we located an old laundry room, complete with cement wash tub.
Potting Shed
To the right hand side of the house I was delighted to find a lovely little building, which I imagine would have been a potting shed in its day. Funny, I didn’t remember the little shed, although perhaps it had been off-limits to us children, or overgrown with vines, which had recently been cleared away, no doubt in an effort to spruce up the property for its sale.
Too Spooky!
By the time the potting shed discovery was made, Adam had begun to ask if we could leave. The potting shed really gave him the spooks! But I loved it!
Lucky horseshoes in the potting shed
With a bit of encouragement I convinced Adam that it was completely safe to go onto the verandas to peer inside the windows, just to get a glimpse of the rooms with the high ceilings, fireplaces and wooden floors that I remembered.
This morning, before he went to school, I took thirteen year old Adam, (um…fourteen before the month ends!) to the dentist.
He was just a tad overdue for a visit and well, yes, he has grown a lot this year, in fact he is now taller than I am. As we walked up the stairs out the front of the dental surgery, Adam commented, “these stairs used to be so much bigger!”
Isn’t it funny how we have a different perspective on the size of our familiar surroundings as we grow up?
A couple of months ago I took a long overdue trip back to my hometown, revisiting the once familiar surroundings of my childhood.
Since returning home I have realised that it will take me quite some time to get my head around my trip. It was certainly a wanted trip. I would even go as far as calling it a needed trip. And while I am progressively sorting out the events of my time back in my hometown in my own mind, there’s one thing I’m certain of….everything seems a whole lot bigger when we’re small!
A perfect example of this fact would be a road that I travelled along on countless occasions as a child. The road went on, and on, and on….
Not only was the road long, it was (and still is) a winding road. Some of the sharp bends in the road take you around a full one hundred and eighty degrees!
Realising that my child’s perspective differed greatly from my adult perspective on a number of occasions, I needed photographic evidence that my winding road was indeed as winding as my child’s mind remembered it, hence the above photo, taken by Adam from the passenger seat of my car, as we approached one of the extreme bends.
And as for the length of the “long and winding road that went on and on and on”? I would estimate the bendy section would last for a maximum of maybe two kilometres. The whole road itself, from the entry of the road and ending at my old home, is seven kilometres, a far cry from what I thought was around twenty kilometres!
Taking a journey back in time can be a real eye-opener!
Last weeks WordPress Photo Challenge theme was “One”. Yes, I know, I’m late, but I really wanted to share a photo and a short story….
Sitting silently alone, in the midst of…well…nothing, I spotted this old park bench.
I visited an old park just recently, during a visit back to my old home town (which I have yet to tell you all about!)
Way back in time, at the very young age of only nine years old (wow, that sounds so long ago!) I enjoyed playing in this park, which was just across the road from the home we lived in.
It was a rented property and we only lived there for a couple of months, whilst our new home was being built, but the memories of this home have lived on, so many years later.
My hours spent playing in the park with friends were definitely a highlight of this time.
The park has been renewed over the years and certainly isn’t the same as when I played there as a child. But it is still a park. With one very old bench, sitting near the fence.
I could never know for sure, but I do believe that perhaps this is the old bench that lived in this same park, way back when….
There is no way of knowing for sure if it’s the same bench, but I like to think that maybe it is. Just maybe, something of my old park still remains today.
Yes, yes, yes, I know; it’s Valentine’s Day today! There’ll be enough love spinning around the internet today, without me adding my “penny’s worth”, or perhaps “two cents worth”!
So, dear reader, you’ll probably not hear this story anywhere other than here!
Today, I wear the hat of the “individualist”. Everyone else can take the high road and I’ll take the low road and we’ll all still arrive at February 15th in the same way!
Some may arrive there more broke than others, having spent a small fortune of their dollars and cents on materialistic impulses, in an effort to impress someone they love.
Perhaps this is the point where I should be yelling out “Bah, Humbug!”, even though it isn’t Christmas! But really, I ask you, why can’t we say “I love you” every day of the year?
Today is the anniversary of a momentous, monumental and unfortunately, probably forgotten memory, a day in history, lost in the depths of an ocean filled with a million bunches of perfumed roses.
It was forty-five years ago today when confusion began to reign supreme, when no one could work out the equivalent of what, in our currency, so everyone admired the shiny new coins, featuring Australia’s native animals, instead.
The change over period of pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents lasted many years until eventually the old currency was completely phased out.
It is a rare occasion today to see any money from the old system.
So there you have it, my reminder that today is something more than just Valentine’s Day, especially in Australia!
Footnote ~Any contributions of roses to the author would be greatly appreciated, the real and scented variety, that is. And afore said contributions need not be limited to just one day of the year! (I’m not that Scrooge-ish!)
On a more serious note, please read a story of family love, here…. And tell those who mean the most to you “I love you”, not just today, but every day. xxxxxx
In My World 