Festive snapshots
We spoke to high-profile people and asked them to reveal their funniest or most poignant memory of the festive season.
The only time I spent Christmas away from home was when I was 17 and working as an au-pair in New York. My boss was hosting a big party for all her friends and her husband’s colleagues and I was really excited in the lead up to it. I imagined a sophisticated gathering of cool adults, making wise cracks and nibbling elegant canapés.
But it wasn’t like that at all, it was a really boring party full of middle-aged people with red faces, eating smoked salmon on brown bread and talking loudly about how hard it was to find a good au-pair. So I slunk off and hung around with the children and , basically, played with their new toys.
Wealthy American children get the most incredible toys. There was a doll’s house the size of a new build in Cavan circa 2007, as well as a robotic rocking horse and dozens of Furbies that genuinely seemed alive.
The children also had a whole array of peanut butter and chocolate snacks that I robbed. I tried to convince myself I’d made the right decision not to go home for Christmas. It was kind of working until I spoke to my father on the phone and heard myself telling him how great it was to spend Christmas Dday building a pirate ship out of Lego with a stranger’s child.
He was very encouraging about it, but I realised suddenly and with devastating clarity that I was way too young to be away from home at Christmas.
I spent Christmas night crying in my room, the way only a 17-year-old can. My new friend, the six-year-old from next door, who was visiting with her parents, knocked on my door before her parents brought her home and asked if I wanted to keep one of her Barbies. I said no, I was too old for dolls. Then I went to bed early, hugging the teddy bear my mother had sent me for Christmas.
* We have a good time, don’t we? By Maeve Higgins is published by Hachete Books, €14.99
Like most children, we were chomping at the bit to race and see what Santa brought us. So we always got up early — sometimes it was 2am. Talk about trying to drive your parents insane. We were warned by our mother to stay in our rooms until daylight. I think she was influenced by our cousins’ family, who carefully unwrapped the Santa gifts after lunch on Christmas day. That was never going to be a runner in our house.
My brother was a genius. We lived in an 1850s farmhouse. The floorboards squeaked, loudly. So, one year, Paul worked out a route which involved jumping over certain floorboards, scaling a few noisy steps on the stairs and sliding down the banisters to reach the sitting room — the gift shrine. The plan was not to disturb our parents, whose bedroom was right at the top of the stairs. This was an epic adventure.
All went to plan: Paul went first and reached the treasure trove of gifts within minutes. But I was less fortunate. I slipped off the banisters and gripped the highly polished wood for dear life, while trying not to scream my lungs out as I dangled six foot in the air.
The brother rescued me by standing on his new red tractor. Mission accomplished, until I wheeled out my new pink pram. Santa had forgotten to oil the wheels. So I eeked and squeaked along the hall, making enough noise to wake our parents up. Mission abandoned.
When I was about six or seven, I had my heart set on getting an engine for Christmas. There was no money to buy presents like that but I knew Santa would be able to get his hands on one for me. My only concern was that he wouldn’t be able to get it down the chimney but my father told me not to worry that Santa would think of something.
That Christmas Eve I got ready for bed really early — I was so excited by the prospect of what I might get in the morning. But as I was going up the stairs there was a knock at the door and my father went to answer it.
He came back in with something under his arm and told me that Santa had called to the door in person to deliver my engine specially. I couldn’t believe it — it was the most beautiful handmade engine, painted in different shades of red. It was an incredible surprise as I really didn’t imagine that I would ever get something like it.
Despite being such a busy man, my father (who was great with his hands) managed to encourage Santa to make this wonderful toy for me. He died young and I always regretted that I never told him what a genius he was to have made my dream come true. But I’m sure if my face on that Christmas Eve was anything to go by, he knew just how much it meant to his ‘little Jimmy’.
* Memory Man by Jimmy Magee is published by Gill and McMillan, €16.99
When I was 12, my parents, Donal and Deirdre, brought myself and my six-year-old sister, Aisling, on an amazing trip to the West Ccoast of America for a month. When I think about it now, I don’t know how they did it.
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at a wonderful place called Quail Lodge in Carmel, California. On Christmas morning we jumped up, put on our togs and hopped into the hot tub outside our woodland lodge. Our festive lunch was hamburgers and fries and then we went posh for our dinner that evening.
It was an unorthodox Christmas but one I will never forget. Other highlights of the trip were Disney Land, Sea World, dDad getting pulled over and drug tested by Highway patrol for suspected curb crawling and testing out vibrating motel beds.
When we returned to Ireland, my mMum would say every few weeks, ‘You never talk about the trip to America’. So, to this day, to disarm her, myself and Aisling will throw ‘Remember America!’ as a complete non-sequeter into a conversation.”
When I was about seven or eight and Santa was someone who could perform miracles, when it came to sourcing presents, I was desperate for a pair of roller skates with ball bearings.
I wrote lots of letters telling him why I wanted them and, as I was the youngest of four, my siblings encouraged me to keep writing and to put the letters up the chimney. I think they had great fun egging me on.
As Christmas got closer, my mother took me to one side and told me that she didn’t think the roller blades would be a good idea because they weren’t very safe and Santa wouldn’t like to think of me falling off them and hurting myself. But I paid no attention as I was convinced my wish would be granted.
On Christmas Eve, we all trundled off to midnight Mmass and then came home and had bacon and sausages before heading off to bed. I was so excited and woke up at 4am, raced down the stairs in anticipation of finding my roller skates. But they weren’t there.
In their place was a letter from Santa telling me why he didn’t think they were a suitable present for a young girl as it was important that I was kept safe from harm.
I was so enraged, particularly as they were exactly the same words my mother had used. I can’t remember what I got instead of the roller skates but I do remember that was the morning I fell out of love with Santa. I had my heart and soul set on them and he destroyed Christmas for me.
I never did get a pair in the end, but last year, my granddaughter Sarah got a pair and I think I got even more fun just watching her whizzing around on them. Seeing her joy made up for my heartbreak all those years ago.
* Just Mary by Mary O’Rourke is published by Gill and McMillan, from €19.99
I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s in Clondalkin, which back then was a small village on the outskirts of Dublin. I am the eldest of four, but it felt like we were a family of seven because my aunt and uncle and three cousins lived next door and we always spent Christmas Day together.
Every year we had a bit of a ceremony bringing in the Christmas candle and one year, when I was about 12, I got the task of playing Away in a Manger on the piano while my youngest brother, Tony, brought in the lit candle. He was so chuffed with himself and was delighted to be doing such an important job.
Wearing his best hand-knit jumper, he walked carefully across the sitting room with the candle, but just before he reached the piano he tripped over his shoelaces and the candle went flying, spraying wax all over the window which my mother had spent ages cleaning in time for the festivities.
He was very upset, particularly as the wax was so difficult to get off — but Santa still came and it was one Christmas memory none of us will ever forget.
With nine children in the house, Christmas was always a really busy time and no-one was more excited than me. I was always the first out of bed and would encourage my brothers and sisters to get up too — we would bundle into my parents’ bed at about 6.30 in the morning and harass them until they got up as we weren’t allowed downstairs on Christmas morning without them.
My dDad would then knock three times on the sitting room door to check that the coast was clear and the excitement would be huge. But for a few years on the go Santa always spelt my name wrong.
I couldn’t understand it and it really threw me that he, who supposedly knew everything, would write Nevin instead of Neven on my presents.
Curiously he had the same style of writing as my Dad, who would be laughing away to himself in the corner, but I never put two and two together. And the other thing I couldn’t figure out was why Santa never finished the food we left out for him.
There was always a bit of cake and whiskey left over and I was worried that he didn’t like our cooking. But once the presents were open any worries about uneaten food and bad spelling were forgotten — it was the most magical time and I will always cherish the memories, particularly this year as it is my first as a father and also without either of my parents.
* The MacNean Restaurant Cookbook by Neven Maguire is published by Gill and McMillan and costs from €24.99.
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