A Family Christmas at Rayleigh
Back in the late 50's and 60's Christmases were very different in the family
from what they are today, there was not the priority in opening presents as there is today.
From my earliest recolections of Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Mauls
was the day being set in stone,
1) Wake up and empty contents of socks ( no special stockings were around for
Father Christmas at that time so ordinary socks were used) to see what
Father Christmas had got for me. Whatever was in the socks was the total of
presents recieved until after 1515hrs (3:15pm)
2) Breakfast was the next stage of proceedings and would usually have at least 15
persons round the table. The meal would be the usual breakfast of cerial, toast and
marmalade, but there would be the traditional Christmas Sausage ( that comes in the
cold meat category) washed down with vast amounts of tea and coffee.
3) Walk up Eastwood Road into town for the Christmas morning Church service at
Rayleigh Baptist Church starting aproximately 1100hrs for a whole hour.
4) Walk home again and play until dinner time at aprox 1330hrs (1:30pm)
5) After dinner play again until 1500hrs (3:00pm) when we would all gather to listen
to the Queens Christmas Day Broadcast to the Commonwealth on the radio.
6) After the Queen then it was time to open the presents from round the tree.
This took quite a while when all the family were together, with the mess completely
covering the floor where presents were just ripped open to reveal the contents.
7) Once all the mess was cleared up, being a very musical family, Grandpa would
sit down at the piano and we would all join in the traditional christmas songs, singing
our way through most of the well known ones. When you look back to the Victorian way
of life, then that was what we were continuing in the spirit of, bring Victorian practices
up to date.
8) After a period of relaxing it's time to start preparing for tea, with a tables full of food for
expanding the waistline even further than the christmas dinner did, we would sit down to
cold meat sandwiches, salad, christmas cake and jelly and trifles, the last of which was
always served by Grandpa sitting at the head of the table. Grandpa had a phrase that was
always used before he started serving, it was "Silence for the Server" , this would be
remembered to the present day with affection as Grandpas attention getter, and it always
worked.... Quite often the tea table was split into two, the adults table and the kids table.
This would be a logistical nightmare trying to get everyone seated ie twenty or more. Once
everyone was seated then life was a lot easier and everyone was soon fed.
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After a good nights sleep and a good healthy breakfast on Boxing Day morning, it's off to
Southend on sea for the usual walk along the seafront. During this time play time on the
beach was the order of the day and much surplus energy was burnt off before returning
home for the boxing day dinner, a meal of cold meats and hot vegetables and the leftover
deserts from the day previous. With a number of the family adjourning to their beds for an
afternoon nap it was left for us kids to play with our new toys or play games together. In the
evening again times of singing would be quite common, but now not only christmas songs
but other hymns and spirituals were included. This along with the new board games and
others gave enjoyment until bedtime. One of the family favourites was and still is a game
called 'Pit', a game where you become commodity traders in the stockmarket aiming to
corner the market in a particular cereal without collecting the bear card. The game involves
swapping two or more cards with any other player until you get all your cards the same suit.
To tell other players how many cards you want to trade, you usually shout as loud as you
want to get the others attention. The round ends when the person with all cards the same
calls 'Corner' and they get points shown on the cards. It's a good game to vent frustrations
and get rid of surplus energy. By this time everyone is ready for bed and so the house
reverts to a quiet as one by one the family depart to their beds... So this is what Christmas
time was like when all the Maul branches met up for Christmas.......
Pictures to follow........................................... |
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