Blogmas Day 16-17: Christmas Memories

Hello! Welcome to Blogmas Day 17! (And Day 16, which I missed, oops!)

To be honest, I needed a low-pressure day yesterday. I spent most of the day just reading and watching the badminton world tour finals. Had a great time!

Today we’re back in business.

Advent Calendar

I joined up 2 jigsaw puzzles today, and they’re both really cute! Not that you can tell from my photography…

Christmas Memories

Today I thought I’d look back on some of my favourite Christmas memories from childhood. I was talking about these the other day with my mom, and they were so cute, I thought I’d share them!

Smarties cake

For a few Christmases when I was little, my mom would bake a birthday cake for Jesus. I still think that’s the cutest idea! It’s his birthday we’re celebrating, after all. Of course he should have a birthday cake!

I don’t remember if it was my idea or not, but my favourite kind of birthday cake was a Smarties cake, so that was what my mom used to make at Christmas. It was just a plain vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, and she’d stick Smarties all over the top and sides. The UK kind of Smarties, not the US kind. (For US folk, they’re like M&M’s.) I would get to help with preparing and decorating it, and it would feel so special to serve up Jesus’ birthday cake on Christmas Day. 🥰🎂

The gift that launched a passion

When I was 7, an old lady who was a friend of the family came to our house for Christmas. I don’t think my brothers or I had ever met her before, but she brought each of us a gift. My mom must have told her that I liked to read, because her gift to me was Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Speckled Band, one of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

The book was styled like a children’s book, so she probably thought it was adapted for younger readers, but nope… this was the original text. Have you read the Sherlock Holmes stories? Not exactly the kind of writing a 7-year-old is familiar with! But I’ve always loved a challenge when it comes to reading, so I decided I was going to persevere through words like “commonplace” and “acquirement” and “investigation” (all within the first sentence!) and read the whole thing.

And read it I did, gruesome murders and all. Is it any wonder that I’ve loved Victorian classics and horror stories ever since? 🤣

The doll in the Moses basket

Last but not least, probably my favourite childhood Christmas memory happened when I was 6. I’d asked for a Moses basket for Christmas, a cute little portable basket for newborns (or, in this case, dolls). Sure enough, on Christmas morning, I opened up a sweet little Moses basket that hung perfectly from my arm! I also got a new doll, so I tucked the doll into the basket, and I begged my parents to let me take it with me to the Christmas morning church service. They agreed as long as I kept the doll covered up well against the cold, so off I trotted, happy as a lark.

When we got to church, the reverend was going up and down the aisles greeting everyone, and when he got to our pew, he saw my basket and asked me if I got it for Christmas. I joyfully said that I did, and it was just what I’d asked for! I’m told that my smiles as a child were quite contagious, so the reverend beamed at me in return, so delighted to see such a happy child having a magical Christmas. “May I see your little dolly?” he asked, and drew back the blanket.

His eyes just about popped out of his head, and he looked over at my mother in surprise. She tells me now that she was mortified, but she laughed nervously and said, “I’m so sorry, but this is what dolls look like now.” It was a Canary Yellow doll from the Rainbow Brite franchise! Here’s an image for context: bright yellow hair sticking straight up, and a fluorescent space-age costume. The poor man had been expecting a sweet little baby doll, and I hit him with that! 🤣 To his credit, he smiled and told me it was lovely, and quickly walked away. It was years before I realized I’d scandalized him! 🤣