Re-Living Christmas: Cherished moments and memories #13

Is the ever green

Christmas Tree.

It’s perhaps the most beautiful tree

Ever —

A sight to behold in every home!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Was one fun activity

I really looked forward to

As a kid.

Back then, we had real live trees

Cut from Grandma’s Cider hedge.

We would walk there one evening

With one of the adults

And cut the straightest and bushiest

Cider shoot we could get.

We didn’t have all the varied and fancy

Decorations we see in the shops today,

But we still managed to do some magic

With balloons, lights

And ordinary pieces cloth,

That Mama had saved up,

From cut outs

While mending and sewing our clothes.

Mama would then get us

Assorted sweets and toffees,

Which we’d wrap in these pieces of cloth

And hang on the Christmas Tree —

The idea being that, just like any other gift,

Whatever you picked would come to you as a surprise.

But being kids, we devised mischievous ways

Of hiding our favorite sweets within those pieces of cloth

So that we could easily pick them out.

It was always fun to see others

Picking ordinary sweets

While we picked all the nice ones.

I wish I have a photo of it now

Coz’ words do not do justice,

To the amazing images

I hold in memory,

Of sweets wrapped

In coloured pieces of cloth,

Hanging out

From the beautiful, spread-out branches

Of a Cider tree.

* Follow us in the next two months, in this “Re-living Christmas’ series, to catch a glimpse of cherished moments and memories of our time.