Coping with the day after

  

Subject: Coping with the day after.

Christmas Day is the celebration of the birth of Jesus a Christ.  It’s a time for children and for presents and the mythological figure of Santa Claus roaming the world on a sleigh drawn by reindeer's with toys for children. He is supposed to pop in on Christmas Eve, down the chimney and leave the presents under the Christmas tree in the lounge. His reward a mince pie and a glass of sherry, he was gone by the time we kids hurtled into the lounge/living room full of expectation as to what he had brought.

In my childhood, money was short so a stocking hung over the head of the bed crammed full of knickknacks and sweets and the Rupert Annual as the big prize. Later when living in much more salubrious times the presents were piled high as adopted in-laws, aunts, uncles, nephews  and nieces in South Africa gathered for a grand Christmas get together. The bedlam as the kids raced around their names called out by Richard, (Maries younger brother) who was the stand in for Santa rose to a higher pitch as the wrapping paper was torn off and the contents soon discarded in the hunt for the next present.  It seemed to me my Rupert Annual was a match for all that competitive present giving especially since the symbolism of receiving only a few presents seemed to make each one very special.

In a previous blog describing a trip to Sun City, I describe  my abhorrence of of gambling, suggesting it came from some deep sense of  insecurity that winning easily was rigged  in some way. If you had money and the economy was thriving as it was in South Africa then a flutter at the roulette table was a risk worth taking but in post war Britain you learnt to be careful with every penny. So watching the kids dissipate their their enjoyment from what was in hand, to  instead search for the next present and then the next seemed disconcerting to my European mind.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring, rather be content with today and let tomorrow take care of itself.