It had been raining heavily during the first two weeks of December and now before Christmas, the weather had become chilly and cold. It was about four p.m. when I walked down the meadow near our house to close a gap. The moon and stars were already asserting their presence with every passing moment. There was not a sound to be heard that still evening and the quiet fields had gonene asleep for the night. Suddenly the calm was broken when a swishing noise was coming from the next field. I could see the outline of someone walking, which left me unsure whether to run home or stand my ground. I decided to wait since the house was only a short distance away. As he walked up the field towards me I recognised he was my father but what he was dragging I did not know until he was right up to me. 'See what I got in the little wood,' he said. I was thrilled to see the fresh red berries on the huge holly branch. He said he would leave it to me and the family to decorate the place for Christmas. Already they had been talking about whitewashing the out houses and painting the kitchen. Father left the bush inside the hedge and he pulled a branch off it for Maig up in the cottage. We always decorated the place with ivy also, and my eldest sister used to spend days with a needle and thread sewing thousands of ivy leaves closely together until she had a long closely knit rope of ivy. This rope she draped on the kitchen window from nails in each corner of it in such a way that it formed the large letter M embracing the complete window.Putting up the holly and the ivy ushered in the Christmas spirit in a big way for us children.

We also had a crib with the Holy Family and the animals on the kitchen window sill. The next thing to do was to prepare two pound jam jars for the large red and white Christmas candles. We filled the jars with oats to keep the candles upright and we wrapped them in Christmas paper. There was a candle for each window. My mother had the goose killed and plucked several days before Christmas Eve. The bird was hanging from the high rafters of an outhouse so that the cats could not reach her. Both my parents had been in town in the horse and cart to do some shopping and to 'bring home the Christmas,' which included some presents from the shopkeeper. The purchases, especially the presents, were all put away discreetly. All of a sudden it was Christmas Eve, cold and frosty. The outhouses were white-washed and took on a light blue colour in the moonlight...the kitchen had also got a facelift and looked all the brighter for it. The concrete floor was washed early in the day and had dried off to an off-white colour.

Mother was now preoccupied preparing her inimitable stuffing and the vegetables for our Christmas Day dinner. Father gave a box of matches to the youngest in the family and accompanied her to light the candles downstairs and upstairs...six candles in all. We had completed the four thousand Hail Marys which had been said every year between Advent and Christmas. The numbers said in bed each night were entered daily in the leaf of a jotter and it was at the lighting of the candles we always burned the pages. When the candles were lit, father appeared with a bottle of holy water to bless the house and its occupants. Blessing the rooms of the house and of the outhouses at Christmas was father's prerogative, though at all other times it was my mother who dealt with the spiritual side of things. That was his Christmas duty finished, but not so with my mother who, when she had the goose stuffed and ready' for the bastable, made the tea.

She then got shirts, skirts and under clothes for the morrow and put them airing at the fire in case they got damp during the cold weather. When we were all having the tea and the usual brown soda cake, she produced not only an ordinary white loaf but a large round caraway seed cake. It disappeared as quickly as she cut it. Having said the rosary, we placed our socks at the bed end and were asleep in a matter of minutes.

At six a.m. the music of a mouth organ woke me. Then Santa dawned on me. Popping up in the bed and groping for my sock in the dark, the sheer excitement of feeling a ball and a packet of lemon drops, woke me up. The older members of the family did not hang out their socks. They knew Santa would not call to them. The youngest of them took a chance hoping that he might get something. He was sorely disappointed when all he found was a large Arran Banner potato! The girls got packets of small embroidered handkerchiefs and two packets of N.K.M. Toffees.

I could hear the homely, familiar noises of my mother down in the kitchen rekindling the fire and preparing to cook the goose. The older children were up already and milking. When we arrived in the kitchen it savoured of rich juices that were sizzling in the bastable. Mother expected it would be cooked when we returned from Mass, and speaking of Mass, she reminded us that we were celebrating the birth of the infant Jesus, and not to forget it on Christmas Day despite the frenzy of the festivities and the goodness of Santa Claus. Father was sitting on the settle and said he was anxious to see all our presents. He examined them individually and was glad that we were pleased with them, all except my older brother who got the large Arran Banner potato. 'Santa was making sure you wouldn't go hungry for Christmas. Not to worry garsun. You'll be surprised at what I'll give you after Mass,' said father.

The milk was separated, the animals and fowl were fed and we all walked the mile to the village and Mass. There were a lot of strangers home on holidays and the priest welcomed them from the altar. After Mass we visited the crib which was neatly decorated with the candle lighting in it. On our homeward journey the sun was breaking through and dissipating the frosty fog. We all had our breakfast while mother was busy around the kitchen. Father beckoned my older brother and handed him a small coloured cardboard box containing a spinning top, something we had never seen. The oldest of the family knew how to spin it, and when he spun it on the concrete floor it started hopping about, first on its pointed spindle and then rotating as it moved around the floor until it ran out of speed and collapsed and rolled over. We thought it a magical present, and by evening we all had learned to spin it off the twine that we had wound around it. It was certainly the best present and my brother, who was now thrilled, allowed us to play with it.

The Christmas dinner, as always, was something very special. The goose and stuffing were delicious and when blended with mother's concoction of spices and herbs it made the dinner all the more appetising. How we gorged ourselves! We each had a cup of sloe wine with the meal. It tasted like Cidona! Mother had bottles of sloes fermenting out near the turf rick, a foot underground, since the previous October.

What with spinning the top and playing hide and seek and blind man's buff - or 'puicin,' as we called it - nightfall had silently stolen on us before we realised it. We were all tired after the tea. When we saw father taking down his walking stick from the clevy, we automatically put on our coats and took to the road with him like we did every Christmas Night to see the countryside lit up in homage. As usual, it was a memorable experience. One would think the whole countryside was electrified with the bright glows in the windows, but it was many years before electricity came our way. When we reached our destination which was the hill summit, what a sweeping panorama of mountain loomed up in the west. We could distinctly see the candles in the windows of the houses nearest us but only one clear light in those some distance from us, while in the far distance and up the mountain slopes of west Cork, outlined starkly against the star studded sky dome, light was reduced to a mere speck in homes we never knew existed. This was the view that we associated with Christmas and which we always treasured. The keen frosty air was very invigorating. We walked smartly on our return journey. I tried to keep myself awake, looking forward to going out with the 'Wran' the next day, St. Stephen's Day. I had been thinking of it during the walk but when the prayers were finished I dragged my aching feet upstairs, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.