Boxing Day Memories

This was first written in 2011.

I have very mixed feelings about today, Boxing Day.

Typically for this country it is a damp, cold and cloudy start. Very nice if you can sit in a heated sheltered spot. A bit bracing out in the open. There have been a few cars passing by the house, on the way to the traditional retail 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, catch-up on the TV, spend some time with my wife and grown up children amongst the new gifts from Christmas Day.

It seems like an ordinary Boxing Day but it is in fact extraordinary because it is yet another that has come round since father died in 2011.

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 gives 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. Some of the family have other commitments amongst close friends and extended families and cannot attend but send, instead, their love and sentiments.

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

This takes some organisation with Mother in her element and 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 the 19 does take some doing and the old settee, 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 mischievous 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 mispronunciation 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 an appearance not dissimilar to 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 for us all. Importantly those who make up the  younger generation in our family group now take precedent in perpetuating the traditions .

Such is the strength and vividness of our memories of Father that there will always be a good and loving spirit and feeling wherever we may be on that Day, whether by the fireside or elsewhere.