2011 Boxing Day remembered

I have very mixed feelings about today, Boxing Day 2011.

Typically for this country it is a bright, mild and breezy start. Very nice if you can sit in the sun in a sheltered spot. A bit bracing out in the open. There have been 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.

I have had a lazy first few hours. A bit of a tidy up, unload and load the dishwasher, hand-wash the larger pots, put some sausages to bake in the oven for a nice buttie, spend some time with my wife and children amongst the new gifts from Christmas Day.

It seems like an ordinary Boxing Day but it is in fact extraordinary because it is the first 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 become the opportunity for a big get-together. 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 miss out on establishing their own tradition.

We all converge on the family home from as far away as America and all parts of the UK at this time. There is a full attendance of 19 on Boxing Day plus the occasional guests, so very much a full house.

This takes some organisation 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 is nicely trimmed up with paper chains, lanterns, holly and a real tree.

The seating of 19 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. 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 bursts 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. Today will certainly be one of mixed feelings.