‘I fiercely believed in the Christmas magic – I still do’
My favourite Christmas gift is one I don’t even remember unwrapping. Like many children, I had fallen in love with Sylvanian Families. The toys were small woodland creatures, with clothes and houses, and I was building up a collection of animal families.
A small grey mouse called Prissy was my favourite Sylvanian, which my mum and dad gave me when I was six. And the Christmas tree was too big an adventure for Prissy to ignore. She was quickly out of her mouse house and into the branches.
Every year, Prissy’s pilgrimage to the tree got more involved. She had a hammock that also served as a backpack, pillow and change of clothing. She made friends with my favourite decoration, a white dove with fans of tissue paper for its wings and tail.
Campsites were made, padded with tinsel and warmed by fairy lights. There were missions and routes to follow. I spent hours every year with Prissy, the dove and the tree. It was a make-believe world I could only access at Christmas. I believed in it fiercely, as children do with their games. It was magic created solely by imagination and it was beautiful. As I got older, I was less inclined to play with toy mice. As a teenager, I would have died if a friend had found Prissy sleeping in a tangle of lights. But I still set her up in the tree and sometimes I had glimpses of the imaginary world I’d left behind. I got older still and left home. And then a different kind of magic took over. It was traditional now for the mouse to go to the tree at Christmas. The rest of the Sylvanians had been given away. But Prissy and her backpack lived among the tree decorations full time, returning to the loft before Twelfth Night. The magic was the tradition created by me and my mum. It’s something happy that makes us both smile.
A child’s imagination is full of magic and wonder. It can turn a Christmas tree into a huge landscape. It can fill objects with life and personality. A child’s play also creates joy in families that endures down the years.
I’m 43 now, and my mum is the one who puts Prissy in the tree. One of the first things I do when I step through the door is to go and look for her. When I find this year’s campsite, my mum and I will stand and look together, arms around each other.