Selection Box: Tommy Collison “Christmas Memories”

Today’s Selection Boxer is 007 guru and Pancake Tsar - Tommy Collison. Here with the Trusting.

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Christmas in my house was always a fantastic time. This was before Patrick was away most of the rest of the year. Mum would pack me off to bed with threats and logic. A killer combo. Threats by way of the clear fact that if I didn’t go to bed, Santa would see the lights and neglect our house. Plus, she added triumphantly, our house is on top of a hill, so Santa would see in good time, so there’d be no chance of a list minute reprieve on the roof. She also employed logic. The sooner I went to sleep, the sooner it would be morning. You might be able to get to John’s heart through his stomach, but my sense of reason is the shortcut to mine.

So, after I was successfully packed off, Dad would head out to the garage (I think this is where they were. Nothing ever showed up in my Gestapo-like searches of the house for presents) and retrieve the loot. Then, he and Mum would rearrange the sitting room. The couches would be shoved against the wall and the presents stacked on them and on the floor in front of them. Dad would take a few bites of the carrot and drink the milk, thus irrefutably proving Santa existed, to my 5 year old mind at least, and Mum would bring out selection boxes and place three of them in front of our presents.

The tree wasn’t in the sitting room. It was in the hall. That’s where the non-Santa presents were, the ones from each other. After Santa was retired, years later, the two were mixed and all our presents were under the tree.

Christmas morning was always fun. Going back to sleep after waking up early always was, and still is today, very hard for me, even not on Dec. 25th. I always used to wake at 5am, two hours before the allotted time we were allowed a peep out of our rooms. I’d excitedly turn the clock toward me and count down the minutes until we were allowed downstairs to see what Santa had brought us.

Once 7am rolled around, I took it upon myself to run up and down the landing getting everyone awake. Once my mission was complete I would then report to the Soviets and await further instructions I’d traipse downstairs with brothers and mother(s?) in tow. We’d first open the gifts from each other before the door of the sitting room would be opened and we’d gaze in awe at whatever Santa brought us.

The rest of the day would be spent in the sitting room, playing with gifts. The presents from the hall would be brought in and played with.

Except one year. One year we got two go-carts with pedals. That particular Christmas Day was spent racing round the house. I got so cold my hand fell off, but I didn’t care :)

December 24th, 2008 at 7:07 am • Filed in Blogging, Selection Box



Comments

5 Comments to “Selection Box: Tommy Collison “Christmas Memories””

  1. Lilinator Says:
    December 24th, 2008 at 10:22 am

    I think its time for the truth about your childhood.

    Santa Claus? me? never, night work? me? – you must be joking, you know me. I crash at night, me the morning bird. You went to bed early on Xmas eve and tried to go asleep. I went to bed but didn’t have to try to go to sleep! I never waited up for the 2am present laying out shift. (time at which all ‘trying to’ sleep had been successful for our three wise men, I mean little boys)

    The truth is your Dad was Santa Claus. He did all the furniture shifting. He did all the careful present laying out. He did all the eating and drinking for SC.

    However lest you think however me the slouch. No I was Santa’s elf. I worked hard at the North Pole, no we are into truth now – Limerick, getting the presents ready for SC. So you see there was great division of labour in your childhood.

    I’m really sorry however that the truth about your childhood had to come out as a comment on Alexia’s blog.

    -Mum



  2. Damien Mulley Says:
    December 24th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

    Cute overload with mother and son on the blog.



  3. Tommy Says:
    December 24th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    Aw, I <3 my mum :)



  4. Theangryhedgehog Says:
    December 24th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    So caute.



  5. Grannymar Says:
    December 24th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

    ‘I got so cold my hand fell off’

    I feel that cold without going outside!

    Nice Piece Tommy and thanks Lexia for another chance to see what makes Tommt tick. :D



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