THE LETTER I WISH I’D SENT AT CHRISTMAS
STRANGE the way your name means Christmas in French, it really was appropriate considering the occasion.
I was six as I bounced down Henry Street clasping my father’s hand in sheer joy as the coloured lights, decorations, ornaments and Christmas excitement filled the falling darkness with pure magic.
This was Dublin in the 1960s as carol singers battled it out with the Moore Street traders as they waved rolls of multicoloured Christmas wrapping paper at us — “Only three sheets for a shilling”. I was walking through fairyland with the joy of Christmas in my heart as I had just been to see Santa in Clerys department store.
As my father and I ambled along Moore Street, the real magic happened. I saw Santa again, he was in a butcher’s shop buying sausages. I tugged at my father’s hand and cried with excitement as I pointed out Santa to him. He wasn’t wearing his red suit but he had the white hair, beard and twinkling eyes.
My father laughed out loud and brought me into the shop and touched Santa on the shoulder. He told him that a little girl had become terribly excited because she thought she had found Santa. The Santa with the twinkle in his eye bent down and shook my mitten-clad hand and smiled at me kindly behind his snowy white beard. Of course, I was told he was not the real Santa because he was too busy in the North Pole to be out buying sausages, but he was one of Santa’s helpers and Santa and his elves had to be fed.
Yes, Noel, it was you, the late great and wonderful actor Noel Purcell. You had just brought the real magic of Christmas into a little girl’s heart so many years ago.
Ah indeed, Noel, as the song goes that you sang with such passion Dublin Can be Heaven and I had just experienced it with a miracle on Moore Street. Thank you for such a wonderful memory. Bernie Bernie Kearney, Wicklow Town