Hartley Neita, Contributor
THERE were no telephones in the country village of my youth.
So on Christmas mornings we children went to one fence and shouted greetings to old George Edwards and his family, including his granddaughter Pam on one side, then went to the other and hailed the Allison children. Both families lived about one hundred yards on either side, and so we had to shout in unison for them to hear us.
At Christmas we ate breakfast early. It was a little different from what was called the "morning tea" of other days. Instead of fried breadfruit, roasted saltfish, and boiled or fried eggs, the Christmas breakfast was bacon and scrambled eggs, with bread, and chocolate tea for the children and coffee for adults. We were told that coffee would blunt our growth and we could not have it until our height stopped climbing when we reached the age of 16.
Santa Claus
We also did not have a Christmas Tree. So, the Christmas stockings which were hung over our beds by Santa Claus during the night remained where they were until after breakfast.
Just then, too, one of Mr. Shim's helpers carried a box of goodies from his grocery shop with squibs, balloons, a few bottles of cream sodas and kola champagne, a couple bags of peanuts, paradise plums and lollipops, fifis, and a bottle of Gilbey's sherry.
After we ate, we tore open our stockings and ripped off the Christmas paper hiding the gifts. My brother and I found toy cork guns, mini motor cars operated by a spring, mouth organs, marbles and Batman, Flash, Superman or Green Arrow comic books. Our sister found jacks, a Shirley Temple doll and other female goodies in her stocking. Separately, we all got new pairs of Clark's shoes and socks.
We remained at home playing with our toys while our parents went visiting.
"Do not," we were warned, "light any of the squibs."
By the time they returned most of the toys were damaged or destroyed. For us, Christmas was over.
The men of the families our parents saw earlier came visiting. My job was to chip the ice from the block bought on Christmas Eve and which was wrapped in a crocus bag filled with sawdust. Our father poured the rum and ginger, and soon they were singing folk songs like "Carry Me Ackee" and "Ruckumbine", followed by pop songs such as "White Cliffs of Dover", "Moonlight and Shadows", and "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" made famous by Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore.
Kitchen
Meanwhile our mother was in the kitchen in the out-house with the maid who in those days worked on Christmas Day, but got off from work on Boxing Day and New Year's Day to look for her family. Neither the parents in our village nor the maids thought that anything was wrong about it then.
The men left our house by two o'clock. Then there was lunch.
Ham was the delicacy, covered with pineapple slices, cloves and cherries. There was roasted beef, spiced deep with pimento, crushed cinnamon, thyme, onions and garlic, rice and gungo, Lucea yam and mashed potatoes. There were lots of vegetables, including beet and turnip which I hated, lettuce, shredded carrots and thick slices of marigold tomatoes.
Then there was a cake. No one could bake a cake more delicious than my mother.
We washed it down with sorrel, but the taste and smell of her cake still lingers, tickling my tongue and nostrils after these many years.
