We didn't really go in for traditional christmas celebrations probably because family was widely spread and I was an only and my father had died when I was quite young.
I just want to share one memory of my mother as she died this year. I must have been nineteen or twenty - definitely living away from home. I came back for the holiday and on Christmas Day we did what we normally did when everyone was eating Christmas Dinner - took the dogs for a very long walk on the Downs. On the way back, my mother stopped to pick up a hitchhiker (a not infrequent event). It turned out this elderly man had, by his own account, been in the merchant navy and was trying to get down to Devon to see his old commander. I have no idea of how much of this was truthful, but as it was Christmas Day, my mother took him home, gave him dinner and a bed for the night and then drove him to Devon the next day - about 100 miles.
My mother was by no means a Christian in the traditional sense of the word, but I think this shows what a wonderful woman she was.
I just want to share one memory of my mother as she died this year. I must have been nineteen or twenty - definitely living away from home. I came back for the holiday and on Christmas Day we did what we normally did when everyone was eating Christmas Dinner - took the dogs for a very long walk on the Downs. On the way back, my mother stopped to pick up a hitchhiker (a not infrequent event). It turned out this elderly man had, by his own account, been in the merchant navy and was trying to get down to Devon to see his old commander. I have no idea of how much of this was truthful, but as it was Christmas Day, my mother took him home, gave him dinner and a bed for the night and then drove him to Devon the next day - about 100 miles.
My mother was by no means a Christian in the traditional sense of the word, but I think this shows what a wonderful woman she was.