Re-Living Christmas: Cherished moments and memories #14

We spent our Christmas coin gifts

On either sweets or balloons.

Sweets, because every child

Has a sweet tooth lurking somewhere;

And balloons, because buying one

Was a guessing game,

And kids love to play guessing games.

Back then, one shilling would get us several sweets

And a balloon to boot.

Today, it can hardly buy one sweet –

But that’s a story for another day.

Back then, the village Ma’ and Pa’ kiosks

Sold different sizes of balloons,

Hang on a paper board

With a number assigned to each.

There was then another board of numbers

Randomly arranged and hidden from view,

That we would pick and peel,

To reveal a correlating number

That’s point to the balloon you had bought.

This made balloon buying

A go-lucky guessing game.

You never knew if you’d be lucky

To the get the biggest balloon on the board

That everyone desired,

Or the tiny weeny one

That everyone despised.

And that — not knowing what we’d get –

Is what lured us to the kiosks

In droves

To try our luck.

That’s how I came to know

Buyer’s remorse

Before my teacher had even said ‘B…’

It’s impossible not to remember

How it felt

To pick a number

That correlated

With the smallest balloon

On the board.

And I’m not sure if this is where I got the idea

That I’m not blessed

With a luck ‘hand’

Coz’ I don’t remember any time

As a kid

When I ever picked a number

That correlated

With the biggest balloon on the board.

I always picked

The tiny weeny ones,

Or their little sisters!

* 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.