Again, I dream of times past and the snows of yesteryear - and afternoons white with Christmas as I walk into the town, hand in hand with my little sister Mary. We are warmly wrapped in winter coats and berets, wellies, long grey socks above the knees, scarves like highwaymen's masks. Two showgirls off to a Christmas Eve party at my best friend's house.

At this end of the town there's a statue of the Blessed Virgin in a tiny black railinged square. We pause and pray as the snow falls lightly on the Virgin's upraised head and then amble onwards, taking in the Christmas lights, the sky above dark and threatening, the clouds bulging with cold snow.
We tramp in someone else's snowy footsteps past the butcher, the baker, the newsagents and the betting shop. Bing Crosby singing 'White Christmas' heard from an upstairs window. Past the Star Cinema, offering a De Mille epic with posters proclaiming 'stupendous, inspiring entertainment in glorious technicolor' and Vista Vision too.

Mary and I trudge on and then halt excitedly at a shop, while our amazed eyes follow the tiny on-and-off bulbs flying around the window at a dizzying speed. I blink and point to tufts of cotton snow and a laughing Santa tucked beside a sign for Player's Please, with the sailor man who looks a bit like Santa himself. In the distance Bing is now tinnily singing Adeste Fideles, which sounds nice and Christmassy, whatever it means.

It takes an age to walk the High Street in the snow. Beyond that, a country road winds mysteriously towards distant seaside towns, muffled in winter and further still the wild Atlantic blows cold from distant America, where so many cousins are labouring now, far from this Christmas at home.

Close to my Loreto school, the walled Parish Church's stained glass is blazing light onto the town cemetery, where Mary will eventually rest. A bell is calling the living and the dead to prayer. Tomorrow we'll assemble for Mass under vaulted aisles of Galway Gothic, and sit near the altar, people standing for late arrivals, clattering cold feet, planting myself on wood that is cold under my new winter coat.

Kneeling and praying, head in hands, for Mamma; Daddy and Mary; for my relatives and friends at home and far away. Then Father O'Toole marching to the altar in green and gold, the chalice in his ancient hands, genuflecting, stepping upwards, getting ready.
'Introibo ad altare Deo', the old priest's holy words soaring heavenwards, echoing, absorbed in the darkness above, sucked in by the breath of God. Mary and I pray together, our words mingling. The prayers of children soar over the church, above my town and up beyond bright Orion. They fall, tumbling into the lap of God and He will accept them, I hope; as so many Christmas gifts.

It snows again, falling lightly, ephemeral as memory while I walk through that landscape of my distantly remembered past.

At the end of the High Street, the Celtic cross is thickly coated with snow. When I stare upwards, wondering where bumblebees go in winter, snowflakes fall cold and wet into my open mouth. In summer the Celtic cross swarms with bees and the man from the Council has to come regularly to take them away into the countryside where they belong. Maybe they were wasps? I never knew the difference. The townspeople claimed when Saint Brigid stopped on her way to the Aran Islands aeons ago, she was hungry and the bees made honey for her. Right there on that very spot where the Celtic cross is now. It was a local miracle for sure. My daddy believed every town should have one.

We laugh the afternoon away in my best friend's house. All my school pals are there - Grace Brennan, Sarah Foley, Fidelma Quinlan, Patricia Tierney and Melanie Ferguson. All of them old now, or gone to their reward. We laugh the hours away, oblivious to time passing, ignorant of our uncertain futures waiting up ahead.

Holly and ivy, fairy lights and a huge log fire. Food and fun on Christmas Eve. Who could ask for anything more? And when the party ends, my sister and I trundle home and sleep an hour while mamma sits in the kitchen, her mouth open, snores slithering from her blurred lips, the meal she's laboured over all afternoon bubbling on the stove.

Daddy finishes work early and after big tea, he slips away to visit friends and have a drink. Mamma's in the kitchen talking to the District Nurse, just passing and popped in to say hello. Sipping sherry and talking of the past while Mary and I sit warmly by the fire telling ghost stories.
Logs crackling, cards on the mantle, our Christmas tree in a corner, blinking lights, the windows reflecting the room's cosy brightness. Mary's falling fingers impersonate the snow, she pouts her lips and makes the sound of the wind - Wheeeew Woooooo - creepy and eerie the way wind should be in a Christmas Eve tale.

And later, after saying my bedside prayers, I lie in bed with the warmth growing around me, busily thinking about Santa Claus on his way from the North Pole. Sleighbells, reindeers, sacks of presents for me, for Mary - for everybody. I wonder if he stops in Dublin first? Everybody seems to know. I will eventually. Stop and never return. 'Goodnight,' my sister calls dreamily from the bed nearby. 'Goodnight and Happy Christmas,' I say, settling snugly under the blankets, my excitement finally surrendering to sleep. I fall into a dream, while all around, the towns and villages of Galway sleep and the great silence of Christmas Eve descends, like a benediction over the dreaming landscape.

While I dream of the past and the snows of yesteryear, and afternoons white with Christmas, as I walk into town, hand in hand with my little sister, Mary.