It's almost 9.30 pm here on Christmas Eve, and when I was a small boy I would have been asleep by now.
Christmas in the Sidebotham household always followed the same pattern. Early in the evening we sang Carols round our Christmas Tree. The baubles and paper decorations, bought in the local Woolworths, or made at school, were all in place. Dad would be drinking a whisky, Mum would have a gin and tonic, Gran would have her port and lemon. Uncle John would have a bottle of Cheltenham Ale. I would be allowed something fizzy but not alcoholic, and DEFINITELY not beer. I hated the odd sip of beer. How could people enjoy such a bitter drink?
I'd get into bed, and I didn't have a Christmas stocking. I had a pillowcase!!
In the morning, Santa had been, and my pillowcase was full, including the presents that had had to be "posted to Santa" so that they could be put on Santa's sleigh. How gullible was I! There were always one or two annual favourites, a chocolate orange, something for my train set, a book.
I was brought up in a temporary house just after the war, called a "prefab". This was a house, a bit like a caravan without wheels, only bigger. It had all sots of modern things, like hot water on tap, a bathroom, an indoor toilet, a refrigerator, things we take for granted today. Unfortunately our prefab was not very cosy. They were "hot in summer and cold in winter". In the cold depths of a December winter I used to get up and find that the inside of the windows had fern like patterns of ice which had formed there during the night. I used to keep myself warm in bed by putting my clothes on top of my bedclothes, and in the morning, some of my clothes would be warm enough to put on and warm me up. Normally I would be warmed up more with a large bowl of porridge.
But not on Christmas Day. The first thing that was different, and which made me feel as though it were Christmas, was or unvarying breakfast of Pork Pie. This was no ordinary pie. This was a large pie made with cold water pastry, chopped pork, lovely clear meat jelly. Australian pies just aren't the same. Even most British pies are not the same. It has to be a home-made pie, or a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie will do if you can't get anything better.
A generous slice of pie would be cut, and some tomato sauce or chutney put on the same plate. It was delicious - more Christmassy than holly, and easier to eat.
Every Christmas morning we had pork pie, until I was almost thirty.
Then, one Christmas, my lovely father, explained why we ate pork pie for Christmas, and opened up a huge generation gap, which revealed a world he had grown up in where the men went to work and the women raised the family.
He said that they had had pork pie when he was young (the mid to late twenties) because it was a simple meal served cold. This was to help out the women who would be busy cooking the Christmas Dinner.
I'm sure the wives and older daughters appreciated the thought!!!
