In the eleven years since I started scribbling about this and that, naturally I have mentioned the Christian festival of Christmas. This year I have reread some of those postcards and have extracted some bits I have liked; hope you do too? You can obviously read the full postcards through WordPress.
From PC 27 Christmas 2014:
“I’ve spent Christmas in Sydney in Australia, rather warm but wet that year, in New Zealand where it was warm and dry, and in Rio de Janerio, where it was amazingly hot … and humid. Wherever, “There must be turkey …. and sprouts ???” Really?? “It wouldn’t be the same without Brussel Sprouts.!” The most maligned vegetable in western cuisine, normally with any taste and colour boiled out ……. until Jamie Oliver came along and suggested roasting them with bacon. Brussel Sprouts are just another of those things in life associated with the most boring country, Belgium.”
“This was followed of course by Christmas pudding, a wonderful, sweet concoction of dried fruits, eggs, suet and spices, laced with Brandy during its manufacture to ensure it matured properly, accompanied by Brandy Butter. Before the pudding was brought into the dining room, hot brandy was poured over it and set alight. Uncle Tommy simply nodded his head – he’d seen it many, many times.”
‘Uncle Tommy’ a papier-mâché Father Christmas from 1963
I spent a couple of Christmases in Northern Ireland when the IRA were fighting for some form of independence, firstly in Londonderry in 1973 and then in north Armagh in 1975. (See PCs 196, 197 & 198 Tales from Northern Ireland) These were dangerous times but we still recognised Christmas; dinner was roast turkey, Brussel sprouts (!) and Christmas pudding served by the officers to the soldiers. The Miss World organisation, through Julia Morley, delivered 400 stockings to our regiment in 1973, with packets of cigarettes, sweets, playing cards and I think the latest copy of Penthouse, a Men-Only raunchy magazine. I’ll leave it to your imagination how the soldiers enjoyed the contents of the stockings!
In Londonderry on Christmas Eve, I went up to the border Vehicle Check Point at Muff, to visit some of my soldiers. A Baptist minister, let’s call him Desmond as my memory is too dim (!), attached to the regiment for the tour, accompanied me. One of the sentries and I stood in a static observation post, looking out over the dark, frosty countryside, whilst Desmond talked softly about the meaning of Christmas; one of those memories that will stay with me all my life!
In the United Kingdom and in some countries of The Commonwealth the 26th of December is called ‘Boxing Day’. I wrote about this special day in PC 86, posted on 31st December 2016.
The following year an extra postcard concerned Mr & Mrs Santa (PC 113). Here’s an extract:
“Mrs Santa hears a crash and looks out across the sleigh park. Rudolph, a retired reindeer with an alcoholic red nose and used only once, in 1939, because it was foggy, stirs in his adapted St Bernard’s dog bed. “Wattts ttthhh ffuni” – sort of Reindeer speak for ‘What the fuck?’ Sure enough, Mrs Santa’s husband has returned, the reindeer hooves and sleigh’s skids screeching on the ice and eventually the empty sleigh has skidded to a stop. The reindeers’ flanks are steaming from the exertion of galloping across the world and both they and Santa seem somewhat worse for wear.
“Christ! What the hell’s happened?” she calls across the frozen ‘sleigh park in the sky’.”
Read the rest in PC 113.
Amber House Christmas Tree Thingy (See PC 210 Christmas Lights)
My ‘Creative Writing’ evening class at Brighton Met was encouraging and I even liked a few things that came from the challenging homework. 2018’s PC 140 was another ‘Extra! Extra!’; it covered a couple of homework scripts, one Christmas-themed about carol writing. Facebook asked whether I wanted to repost this last one earlier this week, so you may have already seen it.
At the end of 2020, a year when many countries had suffered total lockdowns to restrict the spread of Covid, I reminded my readers that the Christian bible is littered with stories of pestilence and plague, be it an invasion of locust, which coincidentally in 2020 had been particularly troublesome in Africa, ……. or famine ……. or pandemics. In the C14th in Europe the Black Death ravaged communities over 7 years. Those interested in our Nation’s story will recall the 1665 Great Plague of London; by the time a fire in a bakery in Pudding Lane started an inferno which destroyed most of the city in the following year and killed off the Yersina Pestic bacteria in the process, some 70,000 had died.
And, by the way, there is little evidence Jesus was born on 25th December. The earliest mention of this day was AD 354. Early Christians preferred January 6th, nine months after the Passover. In the original Julian calendar 25th December was the Winter Solstice, the date of which moved to 21st December with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. “Here endeth the lesson!”
PC 262, posted on Christmas Eve in 2021, was short ….. and finished:
“So …… enjoy your Christmas Eve ……. I hope you have a fun time …… thank you for reading my scribbles. Face the coming year with energy and enthusiasm and embrace all it offers.”
In December 2022 I posted a modern version of the traditional Christmas Story (PC 314 23rd December 2022). It concerned a group of friends sitting around a table in a warm pub, in this case the Lamb & Flag in Folding Under Sheet in the Derbyshire Peak District. There’s Amanda, a very successful shepherdess, Jim whose girlfriend is very pregnant, Pete and others.
Last year I wrote PC 418 ‘Hope Christmas News’ about a party Duncan at The Hope Café had laid on for his regular customers. It reads well, I think; but see for yourself on WordPress.
Big hugs for everyone at this time.
Richard 19th December 2025
Hove
postcards 