The Night Before Christmas Read online

  When we came out of the church a grey morning had replaced the darkness. As we made our way through the silent town, the cold numbed our fingers and toes, but as we climbed the hilly road homewards our toes soon warmed up. We looked in through the iron farm gates at the grey-white fields that were deserted of animals but for the sheep that were huddled into shady corners. As we walked along we watched our breath curl upwards in the cold air and blew into our knitted gloves to keep our fingers warm.

  Before she left for second Mass, my mother issued more instructions than a departing general leaving an inadequate army in charge of operations. She was torn between the need for the goose to be basted and the possibility that we might scald ourselves or even turn the bastable upside down. So she decided to play safe and let the goose take her chances; she finally departed giving strict instructions not to leave the fire go down but not to create an inferno, and to change the hot griosach, or sods, around the top of the bastable at least once during her absence. My father at this stage was frothing at the mouth, so she was compelled eventually to leave her precious goose in our care.

  When we had the kitchen to ourselves, our first priority was to settle down to attack the big baked ham in the centre of the table. This was the ham that had matured up the chimney and hung off the meat hook from the ceiling; my mother had boiled and baked it in a shroud of breadcrumbs and honey, and now all her loving care paid dividends because it was beautifully moist and tender. We always had ham for our breakfast on Christmas morning and it did nothing to lessen our appreciation of it when it reappeared again with the goose. Gradually the goose made her presence felt when she started to sizzle and splutter in the bastable and filled the kitchen with a smell that promised great things later on. When we had the ware washed and the kitchen tidied up, we very carefully brought the pots of potatoes and turnips from the lower room to beside the fire. We gripped the heavy black pots firmly by the ears, balancing the weight between us, and when we had settled them by the fire we changed the hot sods on the cover over the goose. Deciding that we had now discharged our responsibilities, we turned our attention to the gramophone; with the majority absent we had free choice of records, so we were determined to take advantage of the situation. I loved the kitchen at this stage because it was scattered with the generosity of Santa and filled with a mixture of smells full of hidden promises.

  When my mother arrived home, she resumed control of operations. The bastable with the goose inside was moved sideways and the potatoes took centre stage, then the turnips, and gradually by a process of skillfully swinging long black pot hangers into strategic positions around the fire all the pots came to boiling point and got simmering time. The cover of the bastable was removed a few times to baste the goose; removing the cover was an exercise in balance and toleration of heat. My mother got the long iron tongs and lifted the hot griosach off the cover and then, taking a very firm grip of the tongs, she eased the nose of it in under the handle in the centre of the cover. The aim then was to hold the heavy cover in perfect balance or otherwise the hot ashes that were still on the cover could tilt sideways in on top of the goose. When she had the cover clear of the bastable she would place it down very carefully on the stone hearth and then she would spoon the hot well of fat from around the goose down over her breast. Then she slowly replaced the cover and restored the hot griosach. When she judged that things were drawing to a conclusion, she dispatched one of us with a jug and spoon to take the cream off a bucket of milk that was standing in the chilly quarters of the lower room; this would afterwards be poured over the trifle that we had made the night before.

  Finally the moment arrived when the goose was ready to emerge and we all gathered around to witness her debut. My mother swung the bastable off the crane and landed it on the hearth and then she lifted down the big brown dish off the top shelf of the ware press and placed it on the floor beside the bastable. She lifted the cover off very slowly because a shower of ashes was the last thing my mother wanted over our goose at that point. We looked down at the bird where she sat, golden brown surrounded by slightly singed butter papers and stuffing overflowing from her front and rear quarters. She was transferred carefully into the dish where stuffing oozing butter settled in around her and her rich aromatic smell rose to the ceiling and curled downwards to fill the kitchen. While she rested on the table my mother made the gravy with the remains in the oven and the juice of the giblets; when she poured it, rich and thick, over our piled plates my misgivings of the previous night were long forgotten. The stuffing from inside the goose was excavated like hidden treasure and, when that source was exhausted, my mother removed the browned greaseproof paper from the top of the earthenware bowl that held the reserves. This stuffing was not as moist or as butter-laden as the other and we rated it as a lesser grade. We had never heard of cholesterol or the virtues of a fat-free diet!

  By the time we had finished with the goose she was all legs and bony breast and it was we who were stuffed. But we still had room for the trifle and cream, and as we licked the plates the Queen’s speech was beginning on the BBC. My father insisted on absolute silence as we listened. I loved her posh accent but felt sorry for her that she had to make a speech while we were all free to have our dinner.

  Nobody wanted to do the washing up, but Frances hid the handle of the gramophone and refused to divulge its hiding place until the table was cleared, and that proved sufficient to motivate her reluctant work-force. Then we sat around the table playing snakes-and-ladders and put record after record on the gramophone, each taking it in turn to play their choice until finally my father could no longer stand the racket and decided that the cows needed to be checked. As the darkness gathered in around the kitchen, we could no longer see the numbers on the dice and decided that it was time to light the lamp. When we looked out the window we discovered that while we had been engrossed in our game it had started to snow. It was whirling down in big soft flakes and the grove of trees below the house was disappearing beneath a white blanket. Because we lived in a hilly region, the winters often brought snow, but it never lost its wonder and the sight of it always filled us with delight. Now my mother decided that it was too late to go out, so we had to content ourselves with watching it out through the window, occasionally running briefly out to the door to check on progress. When my father came in from his trip down the fields to bring hay to the sheep, he stamped his boots on the floor and soft pads of packed snow fell on to the hearth and melted in the heat of the fire.

  After a supper of left-overs it did not take much persuasion to convince us that it was bedtime. We dragged ourselves up the stairs, each one holding on to something brought that morning by Santa. I cuddled down under the heavy quilt with Patsy on the pillow beside me. Outside the window the snow was turning the fir trees in the grove into real Christmas trees.

  Hunting the Wren

  WE AWOKE THAT morning to a white, silent world. The light in the bedroom had a strange yellow-white hue from the reflected brightness of the snow. Through the bedside window we could see the trees in the grove outside: overnight they had been transformed from a dark green military formation into a still, white, pristine presence. Normally these trees rustled and whispered among themselves and birds were always on the move amongst them, but now there was no movement. Beautiful but lifeless, they were silent white statues and their snow-laden branches resembled the outstretched arms of graceful ballerinas. Not a bird was to be seen or heard.

  “We’d better get up and feed the birds,” Frances announced. But that morning all I wanted to do was to lie there and look out through the window at the transformed world outside; however, I soon had the quilt dragged off me and had no choice but to move. We looked out the gable-end window and the sloping roof on the lower part of the house lay spread out before us like a pure white sheet. The front window looked out over white fields which stretched down to the river valley; from there the land rose again and the farms on the hill across the river faced us and the farmhouse
s seemed to have shrunk in size beneath the snow; this white land rolled away into distant hills and on the far horizon we could see the white outline of the Kerry mountains. The hedges on the hill across the river were huddled under the snow and the sheep down in the river valley were the only sign of life in the whole scene. Contrasted with the brilliance of the snow, their colour had changed to yellow.

  Then into our silent world came the sound of music coming down the boreen. The Wren Boys! We had forgotten about them with the excitement of the snow. We peered out the window, straining for a sight of them, but as yet the only sign of them was the music. It rolled over the silent farmyard and James, our old horse, gave a nervous neigh in the stable at this sudden intrusion of sound into his quiet corner. In the surrounding silence of the snow, the sound of the melodeon vibrated richly, filling the air with a charge of activity. No footsteps could be heard in the padded underfoot conditions, so we had only the music by which to judge their advance. As it grew louder we held our breath and then they burst into the quiet yard where their outrageous costumes contrasted vividly with the white background. There were about eight of them, dressed in all kinds of odd-looking garments: tall, long-legged men disguised in women’s skirts and coats turned inside out, and girls in their fathers’ pants hitched up with safety pins and bits of twine. They all had their faces blackened or covered in cloths with cut-outs for the mouth and eyes, and on their heads was an amazing range of hats and caps. The leader carried the melodeon and they trooped behind him as they approached the front door, laughing and jostling each other. They started to chant:

  The wran, the wran, the king of all birds,

  St Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze;

  Up with the kettle and down with the pan

  And give us some money to bury the wran.

  We ran from the bedroom to the top of the stairs from where we could watch them in action. They filed into the kitchen, making sure that their faces were well covered to preserve their disguise. The man with the melodeon sat on a chair beside the stairs and the rest of them lined up to dance a set to his music. They bounced off the stone floor and at first the snow flew in all directions from their boots and Wellingtons. As they whirled around we tried to guess who they were. We had no problem in identifying one man who towered over the rest and danced with his back poker-straight and his knees almost hitting his jaw; Dan commented loudly that he was like a gate-pillar in motion. Though we realised that they must all be neighbours well known to us, still it was difficult to put names on them. As the music continued I watched the fingers flying up and down the keys of the melodeon and realised that I had watched those fingers many times and that they belonged to our friend Martin, but there was no way I was going to let him know that I had recognised him. When the set was over, one of them sang a song in a disguised voice, which sent his companions into convulsions of laughter. As they filed out, the last to go held out a cap for any contribution that might be forthcoming. My mother gave each group of wren boys the same donation, but my father believed that the better the performance the bigger the reward.

  After a hurried breakfast we got ourselves dressed up to go hunting the wren. It was the first year that I was considered old enough to survive a day on the wren trail and I was thrilled to bits to be taking part rather than just observing. Every year I had watched the wren boys come to our house and had wanted to join in the dressing up and the jaunt around the countryside. I got into my brother’s pants and an old discarded coat of my father’s and covered my face in an old tea towel with cut-out holes to avoid suffocation and donned my father’s cap turned back to front. Now I felt that I had turned into another person. Everything was too big for me so sleeves were rolled up and trouser legs tied up with safety pins but the cap was a perfect fit when my long hair was tucked up under it.

  There were five of us in the group: one sister and my brother, and two cousins who had arrived from town that morning to join us, and we were a motley-looking crew kitted out in clothes that were either too big or too small. Our only source of music was a mouth organ which none of us could play properly, but at least it gave us background music, and despite the fact that most of us knew very little about set-dancing we decided that it would be part of our entertainment. The only strong point we had in our repertoire was my brother’s singing voice, and even though it would identify us, we felt that we had to capitalise on our one asset. My father had always asserted that wren boys should provide entertainment, so we felt that we should at least make a gallant effort. We decided that we would make a start with the dancing and finish with the song to leave a good parting impression, a bit like the wedding feast at Cana. We had the wind taken out of our sails in one house when the woman of the house announced to her husband that she had never seen dancing quite like ours before. A visitor from London, who was sitting by the fire, remarked that she considered it a bit tribal. It was not a great start, but things got better as we went on and in every house silence descended when my brother started to sing and we knew that we had them. I could see as we went along that he sang different songs in different houses and his choice was always right. In one house where there was an old couple, he sang “Silent Night” and I could see the old lady’s face light up with delight.

  “God bless you,” she said; “that was beautiful.”

  By then we were miles from home and I no longer knew the people. “Who was she?” I asked him when we got outside.

  “She taught in our school when I went there first and she taught us ‘Silent Night’.”

  “But that must be a long time ago,” I said in surprise.

  “It is, but I never forgot her,” he told me. “She was a real lady.”

  It was interesting to go into strange houses and to see the way they had decorated for Christmas, but one farmhouse provided a bit of a shock, for here there was neither tree nor decoration, only a bare candle in a jam-pot on the window. It could have been any ordinary day of the year and I felt very sorry for the children who stood around the kitchen. I had thought that Christmas was important in every house; to find that it was not frightened me a little.

  “Why is there no Christmas in that house?” I asked my brother on leaving.

  “You’re all questions,” he protested.

  “But why?” I persisted.

  “Because money is more important to them,” he told me, and I sensed that that was all the information I was going to get. But the memory of that bare kitchen stayed with me for the rest of the day.

  When we had started collecting in the morning, I had thought that this money was the softest we would ever earn, but as the day wore on I began to have second thoughts. My brother led us across endless fields until I lost all sense of direction. The deep snow slowed our progress, and when we clambered over ditches the snow came down on top of us and some of it found its way down the back of my neck. Jumping off ditches where the snow had drifted against them, we sank deep into it and the effort of continually pulling my legs out of it was exhausting. Apart from the struggle with the snow, my legs also had to contend with the extra burden of trying to set-dance and also to carry clothes that were too large and too heavy. Hunting the wren was not all plain sailing! But the hunger was the biggest problem, and I felt that my stomach and backbone were in close contact. It was getting dark and I was beginning to think that I would never again see home when one of the town cousins produced a bar of chocolate from his pocket. We sat down on the side of a snowy ditch and divided it carefully into five even pieces. I felt as if my life had been saved.

  Finally my brother decided that it was time to go home, a decision that I had come to about two hours previously, but because I was only on a test run I had kept my thoughts to myself. As we trudged homewards I ached with tiredness and longed to just lie down and go to sleep, but I followed the others and sometimes my sister came back to give me a pull up a particularly steep field. At last we saw the light of our own house and I almost cried with relief; just a last spurt
and we would soon be there.

  When we arrived in the door I could smell soup and I had never before smelt anything as good. My mother eased off the heavy, wet clothes; I had not realised what a burden they had been until I was rid of them. Then we sat around the table and she poured hot, thick soup out of a big enamel jug into cups. There was eating and drinking in it, and I told her that it was the most beautiful soup that I ever tasted. She smiled and said, “Hunger is a great sauce.” After the dinner we counted the takings, and divided by five it was still a sizeable amount, but even the thought of being rich was no substitute for sleep. All I wanted was to get into my bed and sleep. I had discovered that you needed long legs and stamina to go hunting the wren.

  Days of Rest

  ON THE FARM the days after Christmas were a time of sleep and restoration for land, animals and humans. Growth and productivity had ceased, so we all hibernated. The fields and ditches retired under a blanket of snow. You walked out there into a silent place and the only movement was the river that wound like a black snake through the white farm. All growth activity had retreated underground and the only signs of life were the rabbit tracks in the snow and sometimes larger ones to denote that a fox was in residence. No sound of bird life came from the icy branches, for they too seemed to have abandoned the outer spaces of the farm and had drawn in around the house, where they helped themselves from the pigs’ troughs and picked up the scattered oats after the hens. Hens are early risers and normally in the morning when you opened the door of their house they were queued up waiting to pour out, screeching and cackling in delight; the snow, however, put an end to their early morning enthusiasm. When you threw open the door of their house on a snowy morning, instead of the tumbling flurry of white feathers as they jumped over each other in their hurry out, now they drew back in dismay, squawking disdainfully. They hated the snow and peered out in disgust and only a few of the braver ones ventured out; when their spindly yellow legs sank down into it they quickly returned to the security of their house. Once they were fed they flew back up on to their perches where they slept or gossiped among themselves. They refused to lay and decided that they were going to spend these days eating and sleeping until the world outside was back to normal.