I enjoyed this article in today's IRISH TIMES -
When I close my eyes and think of Christmas, I see a fat man in a top hat with a whip. I see lurid stripes of red and yellow. This is not delirium tremens. It is the only Christmas present I can remember from childhood.
It is what floats back into memory from the year my mother knitted us a circus.
I know there were other Christmases and other presents. There was a tricycle once but the only thing I remember about it is getting in trouble later when I swapped it for a water pistol. It’s the brutal thing about children. They say they want things and you slave and save and you buy them. In return, you get the hysteria and the running around and the novelty wearing off around noon and the kids going back to what they were playing with the day before. And they forget the whole thing.
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-when-i-close-my-eyes-and-think-of-christmas-1.2046756
