the Christmas stocking

The Liberty bodice

was warm cotton, no sleeves, buttons down the front I could do up and two buttons at the bottom, front and back, for suspenders.  These came from the haberdashers, a tiny shop with drawers and glass fronted cases, mysteries full of cotton (now thread) and fastenings and embroidered handkerchiefs with “out the back” which my mother explained was women’s underwear.  Men’s was bought separately.  And I had woollen stockings.  I predate tights.  (The fashion then changed to warm knickers with pockets for a handkerchief if you wore them for gym or where you kept the house key in school: and over the knee long socks.)

The stockings were used for Christmas.

In annalog/the Christmas itch I wrote about a dream Christmas tree and decorating it with all the lovely things discovered, remembered and intangible, instead of glitter and lights.  Most of the stuff I remember shines on its own. 

In my childhood stocking there were all sorts of little things – my mother called them “sillies”

– and there would be one of those puzzles you couldn’t work out.  You put it aside and went back to it after the Christmas meal when we sat in the warmth and read the Christmas magazines (no television).   

Imagining a puzzle, I think of how people do and don’t relate to each other – how they think they do, but they don’t. In interview an Israeli peace activist was asked if his views stayed the same.  He answered yes.  How could that be ? asked the reporter.  “Hamas killed my mother as an act of war on October 7” he replied.  “We were not at peace before.”

I think of the people I know that I don’t know – not really – bits, bits over years but what you learn is habits, behaviours, responses but that person remains like the links I fiddled with long ago, out there somewhere,

beyond …

The point of the remembered stocking was not excess but enough, enough because it was all surprises, good will, time passing from daybreak, into which you awoke before Christmas came, waiting to see.

I’d have family for my imaged stocking – about a million miles away from the sentimental EastEnders claptrap – an immensely powerful unit, for good or ill, socially, politically, emotionally.. 

And I think of meeting a woman in a headscarf at a bus stop with whom I had a good natured, waiting for the bus, conversation.

She suddenly dashed back to the block where she said they lived, returning with a piece of fresh cake for me.  Stunned, I thanked her.  She had a daughter she said, she baked.  I saw her several days later, waved and said the cake was delicious !  She beamed.  And then coming home in the cold and dark, I saw her get out of a car with a big bespectacled man and a girl of about 13.  She recognised me as I reached for the girl’s hand and explained what had happened.  “I won’t keep you in the cold and I know Christmas is not your thing” I said “but I wish you some time together and a really good New Year.” And we all beamed at each other. 

I’ll have them in my stocking.

And the beautiful lady from Bermuda, fine features, skin like copper, who in a conversation outside a shoe store said “Oh you’ve made me laugh !  That’s all you need  – faith in God and a sense of humour ! “   And when things go unexpectedly well for me I say “God smiled” the Master of my Universe.  Laughter would go in my stocking, where would we be without it ?. 

In the stocking of my imagination would be memory – the smell of my son’s skin as a baby and nights in Crete with the salt from the sea and the herbs and leaves.  Clean towels and fish and chips on a cold day.  All the unexpected kindnesses, intangible joy of words to reach and touch – free,

freely given, freely received. 

And there is an old exercise of which I never tire: just as you think of the all the things that have gone wrong – it happens to us all – so list the good ones.   I do – and they go in the stocking.