Boxing Day 2013

I had very mixed feelings about yesterday, Boxing Day 2013.

Typically for this country it was a bright, mild and breezy start. Very nice if you could sit in the sun in a sheltered spot. A bit bracing out in the open. There were a few cars passing by the house, on the way to the sales.

Children's bikes have, it appears, taken a bit of a downturn in popularity this year as I have not seen any youngsters wobbling by on the road or pavement being chaperoned by an anxious red faced parent. No doubt superseded by mobile phones and tablet computers.

I had a lazy first few hours. A bit of a tidy up, unload and load the dishwasher, hand-wash the larger pots, hack some more bits off the carcass of the turkey, open the pickles and spend some time with my wife and children amongst the new gifts from Christmas Day.

It seemed like an ordinary Boxing Day but it was in fact extraordinary because it was already the third to come round since father died.

We, as a family, have been through the same heart wrenching feelings before. My father in law, George was greatly missed at our Christmas table in 1995 and since then the Season has always invoked much emotion.

Boxing Day has always been the opportunity for a big get-together in the family. It has passed the time test and is now a tradition which assumes precedence over all other things. This can be both good and bad as being 'one side of the family centric' there are spouses who inevitably seem to miss out on establishing their own tradition. The dynamics of the family will change though as the children, all now young adults, will begin to do their own thing.

We all converge on the family home from as far away as America and all parts of the UK at this time. There was a full attendance of 18 on Boxing Day so very much a full house. This takes some organisation by Mother and helpers but there is always a warm and rowdy welcome, a fire in the grate, food and drink in abundance and the ever present ingredient of the unconditional love of family.

The house was nicely trimmed up with paper chains, this year featuring oversized lanterns, holly and a real tree. The seating of 18 does take some doing and the old suite, loaded well beyond capacity, is frequently re-aligned as one or more unfortunates disappear between the cushions. It was noted that the room appeared to have shrunk, again as a consequence of the tendency of children to sprout and grow with alarming regularity.

At the epicentre of the gathering has always been Father. Usually in the kitchen when we arrive, hosting drinks and helping mother with the preparation of the food he would burst onto the scene in ginger wig and tam-o-shanter greeting the new arrivals with a mischeivous smile and laugh. We always remarked that, having been an only child, the size of the gathering must have been both joyful and a shock to father but strictly on a 99% to 1% ratio respectively.

He was always the last into the room of expectant faces in readiness for the distribution of the family gifts accompanied by the cheekily irreverent high pitched hoots of "Doornald" from the assembled masses. He took up pride of place equidistant from tree and hearth seamlessly combining the operations of Santa and fire stoker.

The youngest children  took on the role of little helpers passing over the wrapped gifts to father. The drama of the present giving was brilliant. Father's spectacles were up and down from their forehead position as he feigned squinting and illiteracy to the amusement and frustration of his audience. As everyone's pile of gifts grew we would encourage Father to open his own which remained untouched. These were reluctantly accepted and usually pushed down the side of his seat cushion to be opened later.

What can you buy for the man who asked for nothing and yet had everything that he ever wanted there in the room?

The toys and gadgets requiring batteries or mechanical attention were magically activated through fathers attentions, the kitchen table taking on the appearance of Santa's workshop.

At the coming together of heavily laden tables for the meal I was privileged to sit at his side as he headed up the grown up's and his natural shyness and reticence to talk was forgotten in the presence of his closest family.

The Boxing Day meal always gave a further insight into the life and times of a quiet and reserved man of great intelligence, knowledge and wisdom.

Yesterday was certainly one of mixed feelings. We all felt a bit lost when the time came to distribute gifts from the large mound under the tree and adopted as different a method as possible so as to preserve our fond memories of father's inimitable style.

A few quivering voices and teary faces were prompted by a beautiful photograph of the man sat briefly resting against a standing stone circle. It will certainly go well with the shelving gallery of family pictures which have a prominent place in the living room. It was as though he was present amongst us as we had always taken for granted and I think he will have approved.