On the record... why I love Christmas

I LOVE this time of year – I only have good memories of Christmas. I guess in many ways I am lucky that nothing bad has ever happened to anyone I love or know at this time of year.

Putting up the lights and decorations evokes childhood doing the same with my late father as we got ready for our wider family getting together.

As a kid of course I couldn’t help be excited about what ‘Santa’ would bring me because we never had gifts at any other time of year and the few things we got at Christmas had to be played with for a long time before they were replaced .

Christmas morning always had the ritual of my Dad putting on his Frank Sinatra LP Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – and although Frank would not usually be my thing I loved hearing that record while sitting on the floor by our real, needle dropping Xmas tree.

When my Dad died my brother and I gave his records to a charity shop but I kept that one, even though I no longer have a player. I framed the record and sleeve and it comes out at this time of the year and just seeing it makes my heart leap with those memories that come rushing back.

Sadly, while most tracks are on Spotify, the album is not – but I play the tracks I can while sitting by our tree. This year my wider family will be together as always – turkey, sprouts and pigs in blankets will make their annual appearance and I love it.

I know we all work hard to make sure tradition is continued sharing of our old memories and creating new ones. Christmas is probably the only time of year we all let out hair down, tolerate being cramped round a table, play silly games, wear paper hats that my brother will traditionally always wear upside down.

I do hope you too find those good memories, create new ones and do what can be done to bring everyone together. Life’s too short to not get on so please tolerate anything that needs tolerating.