Santa, cribs and toys from Christmas past

WE have some wonderful Christmas memories from Willie O’Sullivan to start off the last Throwback Thursday before Yuletide.

First off, sincere apologies to him for mistakenly rechristening him Willie Desmond last week.

Back to Yuletides of the past.

The season of goodwill began, recalls Willie, with the real Christmas tree, and the scent of fresh pine all over the front room.

“Then the spiced beef. Since I became a butcher, I have always made my own and it is the best in Ireland!

“Then there was the coal and turf fire that had to be blazing day and night all Christmas week. (The outhouse would be well stocked for weeks before.) The snow (when we got it) covering the fields, roofs, and gardens. Magical!”

Willie continues: “The three big cakes of the festive season were Madeira, Layer, and Christmas fruit. The layer cake has now all but vanished, alas! I always check to see if they still exist, but to no avail. Can anybody help?

Mince pies, another must. And three big tins of biscuits: coconut creams, Mikado, and USA Assorted - had to be USA.

Does anyone remember, asks Willie, the glass milk bottles that were delivered to your door?

“In Christmas week, the tinfoil cap would be replaced by a very colourful green and red one. On Saturdays, if you could afford it, you could get real fresh orange juice in the same type glass bottle. Mmm, the best!”

The presents around the tree are vivid in Willie’s memory.

“In fairness to my Mam, she always insisted that dressing us for Christmas didn’t count as a present.

All five of us got one big present each. It could be Meccano, dolls’ houses, bikes, Scalextric, or something like that.

“We would also get smaller ones - Christmas stockings, selection boxes, dolls, jigsaws, Action Man, all wrapped in Christmassy paper. Most of these came from Cavendish’s on the corner of Patrick Street and Princes Street. They were the main hire purchase shop in Cork. Most families patronised them because of that convenient never-never method of payment.

“When it came to the bikes, though, it had to be Kilgrews on Kyle Street. The deposits would be put down as early as August and a few bob put in each week. They would be paid for by the week before Christmas, thus lightening the load!

In today’s world, says Willie O’Sullivan, a never-broken custom is the annual visit to the Crib on Patrick Street with his wife.

“She still carries on with the old tradition of taking a straw from the crib to ensure that you will never be homeless. She does it every year.

“We follow that with a visit to Le Chateau, the best decorated and most comfortable pub in Cork. My wife seldom drinks, but an Irish coffee (or two) has become traditional. It will be special this year, as it is our 50th anniversary this Christmas week.”

Lovely memories, Willie. Thank-you so much for sharing the, and a happy anniverary to you both.

And we have others echoing those fond recollections of Christmas past. Ger Fitzgibbon has particular memories of the scents and aromas that most characterised the festive seasons of his childhood.

“Cloves (from the cooking of ham), and the intriguing smell of spiced beef,” he recalls. “Sausages and burnt, scraped toast (Christmas morning, with my father doing breakfast!) The glorious smell of stuffing (thyme, onion and breadcrumbs).

The inevitable Brussels sprouts (which nobody liked but were deemed the necessary - nay, essential - green thing on the plate).

“Bathsalts. (Bathsalts? Yes - because inevitably, having run out of pocket-money or ideas, I would end up buying bathsalts in Woolies for one of my sisters.)

“Then the incense. I always loved the smell of incense and part of our family ritual was to go into town late on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and go to, I think, Benediction in Our Lady’s, Pope’s Quay, where they finished up with singing and a procession to the crib with the effigy of the Child Jesus.

“This was followed by my parents standing under the pillars talking to the people they hadn’t seen since last Christmas, while the rest of us stamped our feet, desperate to get home and start giving out presents!”

There is another scent that reminds Ger of the festive seasons of the pasts.

“The smell of new. This was often just new vests or socks, but they had a distinctive smell all their own of ‘new’ (before they acquired the patina of their owners).

“And, of course, sherry (in the trifle) and whiskey (in the cake). Didn’t get that scent too often, so you did tend to notice it.”

Katie O’Brien remembers most of all the strong resinous odour of newly-cut Christmas trees piled at the corner of Cornmarket Street, where the be-shawled women shouted the praises of the turkeys and geese they were selling, and shoppers hunted for bargains.

“The scent of those trees was wonderful - it was like being in a forest,” says Katie. 

I have never forgotten it.

“And when we finally did get our own tree up in the dining room at home, that was magical too. It turned an ordinary room into a place of mystery where anything might happen.”

She, too, recalls the Crib and the scent of the straw around the figures. 

“The Opening of the Crib was a big thing in our childhood. We went down to St Patrick’s around 4pm and there might have been Benediction first, but the procession to the Crib was in darkness and that was really exciting because you could really smell the fresh straw before they lit it all up and the baby was there in the manger. It was the real start of Christmas for us.”

Another reader, Joan McCarthy, remembers most of all the family’s own stockings (no fancy red fur-trimmed personalised stockings back then!) being hung in ‘the good room’.

“There was always an orange and a few pence from Santa tucked into those for us on Christmas morning. (I wonder is the ‘be good or you’ll get a lump of coal from Santa’ still used these days?! It worked a treat back then.)

“The crib always took pride of place and it stood the test of time. It was the same one that my mum and dad bought in 1954, the year they married.

“My mother had a profuse collection of ivy growing on the garden shed, and a lot of that would be brought into the house. 

She would buy one bunch of holly from the Coal Quay, add it to the ivy, and it would be hung over the crib and every picture/mirror downstairs.

Oh yes, we always had the crib too, agrees Katie O’Brien.

“The figures, it seemed to our young eyes, had always existed, and the dark grey wrapping paper that was crumpled round a box to form a sort of cave.

“We put it up around December 21, but didn’t place the Three Wise Kings in it until January 6.

“In much later years, studying old religions and traditions, I realised that the story of the three wise men coming to adore the new Son of God was a Christian idea to prove that the ancient beliefs had to give way to their newer, Roman-based one. But back then it was all part of the Christmas custom.

“One year I asked if I could make a special one of my own on a wide landing window, and my mother said yes. I used all my dolls and stuffed animals and was delighted with it.”

Back to Joan McCarthy’s memories.

“My Nanny Riordan was a great baker. She would start her puddings and cakes in August, and we would get one of each every year, I was never a real lover of either, but oh, the scent of spices and almond paste and that wonderful but unnameable strange aroma of icing sugar was divine.

“The cake was always topped with those tiny silver edible balls (the ones that could break a tooth if you weren’t careful!) and a sprig of holly. Simple but beautiful.

“Every Christmas Eve,” continues Joan, “my dad would bring the three youngest to visit his Aunty Eily who lived in Prosperity Square off Barrack Street. Eily was always ready with gifts of giant dummies for us kids. They looked like glass, they tasted sweet, and they were like the ever-lasting gob-smackers from Willy Wonka. (Do they still exist?)

I remember one year my late brother Don got a toy gun and holster from Santa. He was in his element and couldn’t wait to be allowed out to play after dinner, to show it off to his friends.

“Eventually, he headed over to Patrick Trahy Road, where my dad’s sister, Aunty Mary lived, as did many of Don’s childhood friends. Don arrived, proud as punch with his gun and holster, until out of one of the neighbouring houses strolled his friend Billy, dressed top to toe in full cowboy outfit, gun, holster AND actual caps (remember the paper ones that you’d feed into the gun, shoot and they’d make a gunshot noise and emit smoke and an amazing smell of sulphur?).

“Poor Don was devastated and wondered what he had done to disappoint Santa that year!”

Joan has shared a lovely photo from 1958 of her parents’ visit to Santa with three of her older siblings.

“My eldest sister Norma in the middle, my late brother Don to the right with my dad Owen, and the babe in arms is my sister Marie, I’d love to know but have no idea where it was taken.”

Meanwhile, Anne Watt has written from London to tell us that she simply loves Throwback Thursday and reads it every single week. “I’ve been particularly enjoying the descriptions of Cork Christmases gone by; brought back a lot of happy memories!” she said.

“My own particular ones are: visiting nativity scenes in various churches with my grandmother. St Peter and Paul’s was my favourite.

“A trip to town to visit Santa in Day’s was another highlight. The city centre looked so festive and Cash’s window displays were a must see.

“I remember our turkey was always from the English Market, and poor Dad’s job was to clean out the innards! Ham came from O’Donovan’s, and Mum always bought a tin of fancy biscuits and a box of dates.

We looked forward to the arrival of the post too; postal orders and book tokens from relatives abroad ! Also, the Holly Bough; loved reading that!

“On the day itself, busy adults didn’t want children ‘under their feet’, so we all played outside. A parade of bikes, trikes, and dolls’ prams, while pretend battles with cap guns followed. Also, annuals to be read and later swapped! Looking back, Christmas was always a magical, exciting time for us children.”

Merry Christmas to you all! More festive memories of yesterdays next week. In the meantime, send us your own recollections of ringing in the New Year in times past. Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com. Or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork.