Christmas In Dalhousie

I was 5 and my sister 4. The year was 1954 and my father had been posted to take command of the Third Battalion the Grenadiers. It was the second time he had taken charge of that battalion. The first was in 1947 just after partition in Bombay when he took over command from that last British colonel, Colonel Shebbear.

Christmas at our house was always a grand production, worthy of being a Hollywood movie set. There was a tall Christmas tree courtesy of my father's position in the community and together with that, all the requisite lights and ornaments which both my parents jointly put up with some help, though mostly hindrance, from their two kids. My mother would, over the course of a year, feed the Christmas pudding with rum. This entailed her having either bought but, in all probability, made a pudding which was then on a monthly basis subjected to a small glass of rum being poured over it. The result was a pudding to knock you flying and which was unmistakeably enjoyed by my parents and various neighbours who popped in for a drink on Christmas day. My father's contribution was to make the brandy butter, which was eaten together with the pudding. So, imagine if you can, a very rich dried fruit pudding with twelve months' worth of rum soaked in it, and then eaten with brandy butter, which was just butter at room temperature whipped together with caster sugar and brandy. Another item we weren't allowed to taste as children. But what we did eat, was my mother's Christmas cake. That was a rich dried fruit cake sans alcohol, covered entirely with a rich decadent ankle deep layer of marzipan icing, adorned with an ornament of Father Christmas climbing either down or out of a chimney, depending upon your narrative. That was a cake to die for.

But I'm jumping ahead of myself. On Christmas eve, before my sister and I were put to bed, we had to write as best as we could, a list of toys we wanted Father Christmas to bring us. I'm sure the list was long and unattainable, but at our ages we didn't know any differently. After the list was completed, or when my parents told us it was complete, because as a child of that age such a list is never complete; we placed it on the table next to the Christmas tree. Next to the letter was a small glass of brandy to warm up the intrepid time traveller and to cajole him into giving us our entire list. Once that was done, off to bed we went.

The next morning the two of us were up way before our parents and we ran into the living room to see if Father Christmas had indeed visited us. That was the first hurdle, because we were told that he didn't visit homes where children hadn't been good. We weren't sure if that applied to our house though, then secondly whether we had received any presents and lastly if there were, were they what we had requested. Well, the first two hurdles had been crossed, but third? Oh my, just one look at the size of some of those presents convinced me that indeed I hadn't received the motorboat or the spaceship or in fact the car I had so longed for. My sister probably felt the same way though her list was nowhere near as monstrous and outrageous as mine. I was close to being devastated. As devasted as a five year old could be. There had to be a reason. So, I walked up to the table and was excited to see that Father Christmas had indeed drunk the brandy. But there next to the empty glass was a letter. I noticed that it was addressed to both my sister and I, but that was all I could read at age five.

It was time to wake up my parents, which we did unceremoniously. Many years later when my children did the same thing, I understood why my parents weren't enthused by our appearance that early in the morning. But they were good sports and once they had put on their dressing gowns, my parents were very proper, they came out into the living room. The letter had now taken priority over the requested presents which hadn't arrived, though maybe they were going to arrive later by cargo ship or horseback. There had to be a reason why there weren't there under the tree. My father picked up the letter and looked at it.

He looked perplexed, "I can't read it," he said in all honesty.

"Why daddy?" I asked a little confused.

"Well, it's not in English," he replied in all sincerity.

"Oh, what language is it in?' I pressed him for more answers.

"I think it may be in Norwegian."

Norwegian? I thought to myself, what's that? "Why would it be in Norwegian Dad?"

"That's because they speak Norwegian in Lapland."

Lapland, I thought to myself, that's a strange name for a place, "Lapland Dad, why Lapland?"

"Well, that's where Santa lives," My dad replied with his trademark patience.

That made sense to me, "What can we do?" I asked now feeling that the world was crashing around me and the spaceship I had asked for was lost forever.

But my father had the answer. My daddy always had the answer, "I know Mrs. Luxor next door is from Norway. She can read it for us."

Well, that was all I needed to be told, "let's go dad and get her."

"Dickie," he said calmly, "it's very early in the morning. Why don't we wait until at least the sun comes up?"

"When does the sun come up?" asked my sister trying to be relevant.

"Soon," my father answered, and we had to live with that.

Panic was about to set in though. Waiting for the sun to rise was an unknown proposition. My mother came to the rescue. After she had taken the empty glass into the kitchen, she had returned just in time to witness the tail end of our discussion with my father.

"How about breakfast?" she asked enthusiastically. "Eggs, bacon, sausage and toast with marmite, yummy!" she listed the items hoping that one of them would sway us. Not yet the two of us thought to ourselves. We weren't yet convinced that making the sun rise before its time had to take a backseat to breakfast. "And chocolate milk with Horlicks, just because it's Christmas," she added seeing that she had no takers. It worked, the sun could wait.

A while later after we had got dressed, my father walked out of the front door and we watched him through the window as he made his way to the neighbour's house. None of the numerous presents under the tree had been touched yet. The letter in Norwegian explaining why I hadn't got my spaceship, motorised boat or car was more important after all. Maybe he had made a mistake and the presents under the tree were for someone else on the street and once we they had been opened, he might not be able to replace them. We were excited. I saw my father walking back to the house with Mrs. Luxor walking behind him. The snow was deep and the soldiers had dug a narrow path so people could to walk in single file. The front door opened and our excitement was now through the roof. I was absolutely convinced that Father Christmas had delivered my presents to those awful children down the street and that they were right now flying around the neighbourhood, even though I couldn't see them, in my spaceship.

"Happy Christmas!" we shouted, and Mrs Luxor clapped her hands in genuine excitement.

"I understand you got a letter from Father Christmas," she said loudly.

"Yes!" we shouted in unison jumping up and down, our level of excitement increasing proportionately.

"Where is it?" she asked and I ran to the table, picked it up and ran back to her. I placed it in her hands and stood there in raw anticipation.

"Yes," upon examining the letter, "now I know why your father called me. It is indeed in Norwegian."

Yes, yes, yes, I thought to myself we know all that, "please read it to us," I asked her nicely. Which she did.

"Dear Dickie and Sheela," she read, and my sister and I looked at each other. That was spectacular. We were famous. Father Christmas knew our names. She continued. "My journey around the world at this time of the year is so delightful,"

"What's delightful dad?" I asked and he put his finger to his lips.

"Afterwards," he whispered and I nodded.

Mrs Luxor continued. "I enjoy going to all the homes and dropping off presents for my little friends," he's now calling us his little friends I thought to myself, this is fantastic. "But I have a sleigh that's not very big and so I can't carry all the presents that my little friends have asked for." Bummer I thought to myself, at least the kids down the street don't have my spaceship. "But instead of the things you two have asked for, I have brought you things that you will love and next year Dickie, I will make sure there is enough room in my sleigh for your spaceship." And that was supposed to make me feel better? By then I'll be six and maybe I'd want something else and not a spaceship. So, he'll turn up with a spaceship and I'll have to tell him I don't want it. But then what changed my mood was when Mrs Luxor said, "oh there's a postscript." I had no idea what that was, but she turned over the page and began reading. "Dickie because you have been such a good boy I have brought you a gun." A gun! I was stunned. A gun, wow! you can keep the spaceship. I have to write to Father Christmas later and tell him that.

A gun that shoots real bullets? no sorry, only ping pong balls, I was told later. But that was better any day than a spaceship. After all, I would have to wait for the snow to go away before I could fly that. A gun, well that's different. And with that I dived into the Christmas presents as did my sister and the two of us came up for air occasionally screaming with delight at all the things we did get. I heard my father say Happy Christmas to my mother, give her a kiss and then presented her with something out of a little box, I think it was a piece of jewellery. Both my sister and I paused our diving for a second and watched in embarrassment as they hugged each other. We grinned sheepishly and then continued our dive. My father sat down in a chair to watch his two children having a wonderful time, while my mother made her way into the kitchen to prepare Christmas lunch. And Mrs Luxor, the Norwegian lady, well, she made her way back to her house and into my memories forever.