Christmas at the Museum of Childhood Ireland
It’s beginning to look a lot like…… Christmas! Only days now until the big day.
Christmas is a wintry holiday celebrated by many in Ireland, and it brings with it fond memories and waves of nostalgia, reminiscing about Christmases past, and indeed the year that has just gone by.
It can be a time of reflection, of family and friends, of restful peace or bustling socialising. It is also a holiday steeped in tradition, with every family having their own customs, habits and schedules, passed down through the generations.
I love speaking with friends about their Christmas experiences – I delight in the huge variety in the holidays from person to person, at how different it can be from the Christmases I have come to know and love.
Christmas to me is a congregation of extended family, all clamouring for their spot above the noisiness and humming excitement, playing Trivial Pursuit in my grandparents’ house on St. Stephen’s Day, eating my one annual Brussels sprout at Christmas dinner – I hate them with a passion, but it is tradition after all, and the holiday would not be complete without grimacing through at least one!
Christmas is exchanging presents with family and friends, hot chocolate in hand, battling to be the first to the Roses tin to clean it fresh out of strawberry ones before my Dad notices, and mouthing along to Home Alone – the movie my brother loved so much as a child we can all recite it word for word.
We’d love to hear from you about how your family celebrates Christmas, how you’re celebrating this year, and what things make Christmas for you? What’s on your Santy list? What will be on the table for the main meal? What do you remember about your Christmases as a child? Maybe there was one gift that will always stick out in your mind?
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