Richard Hogan: When you get everything, does that diminish the significance of Christmas?

Passing on the Christmas traditions like 'cluck and collect'

Richard Hogan: Every year we take a trip to a farm to collect the annual Hogan Christmas turkey and apple juice.

IN a wonderful essay called ‘The Ghost of Christmas Past’, Hugh Leonard recalls his childhood experience of Christmas morning. Through the banal act of cleaning boots, the adult Leonard is transported back into the skin of his childhood self. It is a magical story exploring the power of nostalgia and memory. He utilises an allusion to the great French author Marcel Proust’s work, ‘In Search of Times Past’, where the act of dipping a madeleine in tea takes Proust back into his own childhood.

For Leonard, polishing shoes transports him into his childhood kitchen, where before him the scene unravels like a silent movie. His parents are there, younger and frugally preparing for the big day. What is so beautifully illustrated in both stories is the power repetition has on the human psyche. Whenever we do something repeatedly, it becomes tradition and when this happens the power of nostalgia is born.