I remember one Christmas waking up in the small box room that was my childhood bedroom.
I couldn’t see out the window, because it had iced up overnight. Those were days before the advent of double glazing.
We lived then in Birmingham where my emigrant parents, from either side of the Irish border, had gone for work and, I imagine, to get away from the stultifying constrictions of 1950s Ireland. My dad apparently had refused a good job at home in Limerick because he would have to work Sundays. His factory job in Birmingham necessitated shifts on the so-called day of rest. We’ve all cut off our nose to spite our face.
But his somewhat rash decision to leave Ireland for the unwelcoming country which had done so much harm to his homeland meant he met my northern mother, and for that I and my siblings are grateful.
As children we had all the love in the world, and didn’t suspect the poverty my parents endured as they tried to build a life for us; nor were we aware of the discrimination they faced in their daily lives. What I do remember is the close sense of community among the other ex-pats, and my pride when St Patrick’s day came around and I could wear my green, white and gold rosette to school.
My granny always sent a Limerick ham for Christmas – an exotic limb which hung from a coat hook on the stairs. Mum would sneak slices off it and it provided rashers for the fry-up my parents always had after midnight mass.
Only god knows what it would have cost my granny to buy the ham and ship it over the Irish Sea. But it must have been received like manna from heaven.
That Christmas, the one of the icy windows, my presents were in a sock – a common sock, not a hessian sack with my name plastered over it by some poor wage-slave in Asia.
I cannot remember what I got, save one thing. Nestling in the toe was a satsuma; a little nugget of gold amid the cheap toys. But it says something that some 55 years on I remember that little orange in all its glory, and the taste of the sweet juice when I bit into it.
I know what my children would have thought if they had woken up to frozen glass, the steam from their breath hanging in the air, and a man’s sock stuffed with plastic tat and a satsuma. Times have moved on, we live now in a material world. Many of us have the resources to buy flashy presents to pile under the tree – and if we haven’t the ready cash, there’s always that tempting bit of plastic to take care of things.
The sacrifices my parents (and countless others) made for us – and I don’t really know the full extent of what they did without – meant my generation could take advantage of the opportunities theirs created: health care free at the point of use; technological innovation which transformed our lives; and access to material goods which gave us a quality of life their parents could not have dreamt of.
And that has been the way for each succeeding generation in modern history. Life has got a little better generation after generation - until now.
We have allowed the dream each generation has for the next to be stolen from us. There is enormous wealth in the world, but it belongs to fewer and fewer people. The seven deadly sins have been replaced by one – the sin of greed. Our sense of agency has been taken from us by stealth, and it is difficult to know how we can take back control of our lives and our futures from indifferent governments, multi-national conglomerations which use every trick in the book to consume our wealth, and the hoods and criminals who control our communities by exploiting addiction and generating fear.
This year there will be many children waking up on Christmas morning with their breath hanging in the air of an unheated room; their windows may be frozen, they will certainly be dripping with condensation; the food in their fridge will have come from a food bank, and their toys too.
I hope someone remembers to slip in a satsuma.
I know now that little citrus was a symbol of love, and love is the greatest gift that can be given this, or any, Christmas.
