The Night Before Christmas

by Alice Taylor

  The heifers were the last animals to be brought in from the fields before Christmas. Now the sheep alone remained outside, but they had big, warm, fleece-lined coats to keep out the cold and every evening hay was carried down the fields to them. After a few days the heifers fell into routine with the other cattle and went willingly into the stalls where sweet-smelling hay awaited them every night. The haggard across the wall had a barn full of hay to feed them throughout the winter. In a yard below the barn the horses, James and Paddy, stood in the stable and hay was thrown in the window above their heads and fell into their mangers. Beyond the stables the pig-houses were empty except for the old sows. All the others had been fattened and sent to O’Meara’s Meat factory in Limerick, and the cheque from their sale would keep us going over the winter. Two of them had been killed for home consumption and were now in timber barrels of pickle in the lower room or hanging off the meat-hooks from the kitchen ceiling. The hams were up the chimney being smoked for Christmas.

  On the farm in the winter there was very little income, but since we were fairly self-sufficient it took little to keep us going. The hens sometimes obliged and a few of them kept laying even during the cold weather. One cow kept us in milk and she was called “the stripper”. She was not in calf and she continued to provide milk over the Christmas period while her pregnant sisters were resting. What was drawn from her was described as “the strippings”, which was a term also used to describe the first of the milk drawn off the udder of ordinary cows before the milking proper commenced. There was very little milk in either case.

  With all the animals housed for the winter it was time to tidy things up out in the yard for the Christmas. Martin was due to go home on Christmas Eve, so he and my brother spent the last few days brushing the haggard, the cow-yard and the passageways. It was a mucky job but it was all part of the Christmas clean-up. It was our job when they had their part done to tackle the walls. First we washed them down with buckets of water and then used the kitchen brush to wash away their green slimy look. The water was cold and the day was cold and by the time the job was done our hands showed a mixed colour scheme of navy and purple. When the walls were dry we mixed lime in a big tin bath where it frothed and spat as the first of the hot water hit it. My mother cautioned about not getting lime in our eyes but it always seemed to happen and some unfortunate ran to the kitchen crying for water and a towel to repair the damage. We had to get the whitewash to the right consistency. Too thick and progress was slowed down; too thin and the yard was whitewashed by the overflow, which could lead to some very derisory comments from people who considered themselves expert colour consultants. When the mix was judged right, we added a squeeze from my mother’s blue bag, and here we had to be careful because white walls were the requirement, not blue ones, but a squirt of blue gave them a brilliant white look. We got to work with two big whitewashing brushes and covered all before us, even bits of the hedge that came in our way. The end result was glorious and brightened up the whole dark winter’s day. The hen-house, the turf-house, and the pig’s house all got a lick. They lost their green mottled look and were almost brighter than white.

  Between the main farmyard and our garden was a long low wall with a hedge hanging out over it and this wall, together with the two small pillars, had to be cement-washed. A less dramatic job, so less desirable, it nevertheless had to be done. We were not supposed to paint the garden gate, but there was green paint still left in the tin since the last Stations, so we sneaked it out and the gate became bright green in minutes. My mother objected to painting the gate in the winter; and we discovered why when my father came swearing into the kitchen that night holding up two green hands for all to see.

  Cleaning Up

  DURING THE DAYS leading up to Christmas I sometimes wondered if Santa was a hygiene inspector. My sisters started clean-up operations in the upstairs bedrooms: they stripped down all the beds and turned the horsehair mattresses and feather ticks. Showers of feathers often rose into the air during these undertakings, which meant that a hole in the tick had to be located and stitched up. Sometimes it was the pillows that were at fault and it was amazing the quantity of feathers and down that could make its way out through a tiny tear. The marathon bed overhaul resulted in tubs of washing, but the days were wild and windy so they came in fairly dry in the evenings. At night my mother turned the backs of the chairs to the fire and linked the sheets along them for airing. I loved the smell of sheets airing around the fire and sometimes crept in under them to savour the warm, clean smell of drying linen and cotton. The first night that these went on the beds they smelt of the world outside and the peaty essence of the turf fire.

  Once the beds had been done, the upstairs floors were next in line. Some had bare boards and others were lino-covered and all had to be scrubbed down with a tin bucket of hot soapy water. A big tin of Mansion’s floor polish was rubbed into the lino with a discarded vest and then we started to shine with an old soft knickers under each foot. We shot back and forth along the floors, pretending that we were on a skating rink and rising a great shine. Polishing the landing and stairs was outlawed because the previous Christmas my father had taken off on the top step of the stairs to make a crash landing at the bottom. His stockinged feet had shot him smoothly and silently over the edge, but that had been the only smooth and silent thing about the whole performance. He had arrived toes-first into the kitchen at such a speed that he overshot the runway and did not grind to a halt until he was half-way across the kitchen floor. Our Lady and St Joseph and every saint in heaven were called to witness the fact that he could have been maimed for life as a result of the madness of a house full of women with nothing better to occupy them than polishing steps with the sole intent of killing everyone who went up and down them!

  Cleaning the upstairs windows was an exercise in acrobatics – and a chilly exercise, as you had to hang out of the window to get at the outside. The windows were small and did not run freely, some having been stuck solid for years, so you had to lean out where possible and then squirm around like a snail to reach awkward corners. Sometimes a blade had to be brought into action where the painter of the previous summer had left a smear down the sides. When the entire bedroom clean-up had been finished, it was a pleasure to open the door at the foot of the stairs at night and get the fresh smell of floor polish wafting down against you.

  Downstairs was where the real marathon took place. Our kitchen ceiling consisted of a series of long, narrow ceiling laths which had been painted cream, but during the year the smoke had changed the colour to a tawny beige. We pulled the two kitchen tables into key positions and mounted them, with scrubbing brushes and buckets of warm soapy water. Water ran down our arms and up our sleeves as we worked, but after a long struggle some of the smoke effects were eradicated. Before the scrubbing could commence we had had to take down the pieces of bacon hanging off the ceiling hooks and these now had to be heaved up again. As for the kitchen walls, the lower half, which we called “the partition”, was lined with timber and had to be washed down, while the wall above it was distempered a pale yellow.

  At the bottom of the kitchen stood a big cream-coloured press with two glass doors; beneath them were two large drawers and two solid doors at the bottom. The top shelves of this deep press held the everyday kitchen ware, with slats along the back for big plates; the bottom section was the food store cupboard. One drawer in between held the cutlery and the other was the receiver of homeless objects. Before Christmas the entire contents of the press were laid out all over the kitchen, and it was almost impossible to find a temporary home for everything. But once the oilcloth lining of the press had been washed clean with the ever-reliable Vim, everything could be returned to base. The biggest upheaval was caused by the removal from the press of the big brown and blue dishes that were supported by a timber bar running midway along the top shelf. We had to be careful when taking them out because often things poked in behind them collapsed with their removal. When replacin
g them my mother cautioned about banging the dishes off each other and chipping them. Some were very old, having been in the house before herself, and she wanted them to survive to the next generation. She regarded with great respect everything that had been in the house when she had come into it; though a lover of people rather than things, she still felt that articles handed down from previous generations possessed a special value, so even though Grandmother Taylor had been dead with many years we treated her dishes with the utmost care when doing our Christmas clean-up.

  A further problem was posed by the dumping drawer because it was creaking at the seams with homeless objects. Nobody wanted the job of dealing with it because it put you in a no-win situation. You had to get rid of some of the contents, but no matter how discerning you were there were going to be repercussions and retributions. In there were torn table-books, broken crayons, old creamery books, red copies of the Messenger, brass door-knobs and – most important of all – old letters. Years afterwards, when I had left home, the first thing I always did on returning was to go to that drawer and rummage through its contents to read all the family letters that had come in my absence. In many ways it represented the pulse of the home. The first time I found myself in the position of not being free to do so, I knew that home was no longer quite home anymore.

  Whitewashing the hob for Christmas required a special effort. After removing the big iron kettles and hangers the crane was swung outwards into the kitchen. The goose-wing was used to brush down the turf dust all around the hearth and out from behind the bellows. In there was the home of the cricket who was seldom seen but often heard as he provided our nightly background music around the fire.

  The whitewash was made extra-thick and creamy, and as we went into every crevice we peered up at the hams where they were hanging off the brad above our heads. When the hob was gleaming white on either side of the black smoke trail up the centre, the crane was brushed down with an old scrubbing brush and then swung back into position. Across the chimney breast the oilcloth kept in the smoke and formed a decorative overhead boundary between the kitchen and the hearth, but last year’s oilcloth was cracked and its serrated edges had curled up from the effects of the heat and old age, so the old one was removed and a new one, glossy green and red, was tacked on.

  One job that we all tried to avoid in the Christmas clean-up was the task of reducing my father’s butter box to manageable proportions. It was his tool box, but he never saw the need to tidy it up and throw away the rubbish; he kept piling stuff in until it overflowed and poured out on to the surrounding floor. The contents of the box were dirty and rusty and by the time you had it sorted out your fingernails were broken and your hands filthy. And if my father walked in while you were at it you could finish up dead. When we could postpone the job no longer we threw the contents out on to the floor and what we thought he needed we threw back in as fast as possible; all the little bits of timber that were causing most of the clutter we threw into the fire. The first time he had to use it after this clean-out, we all disappeared!

  The windows were next in line. When we pulled out the shutters we were greeted with a shower of dust and some loose mortar. Cobwebs were draped between the loose stones, and as their creators ran for cover we saw the evidence that this was a main road for travelling mice. Because our house was old its thick walls afforded shelter for lives other than ours and sometimes these parallel lives intruded on each other. Now we removed signs of others’ occupancy and closed back the shutters; they could live in peace for another twelve months. Then we washed down the shutters and polished the windows, the front one getting special attention because that window-sill would be the home of the Christmas candle.

  The closing scene in the Christmas clean-up was the scrubbing of the two timber tables and the súgán (chair with rope seats) before we got to the grand finale of the floor. If it was a fine day we carried the chairs to the spout at the end of the garden and stood them into the running stream where we scrubbed away in the cold water. As we carried the chairs up through the garden back to the kitchen door a poem from our school book came into my mind; it was called “The Table and The Chair”.

  Said the table to the chair,

  “You can hardly be aware

  How I suffer from the heat

  And the chilblains on my feet!

  If we took a little walk

  We might have a little talk!

  Pray let us take the air!”

  Said the table to the chair.

  Said the chair unto the table,

  “Now you know we are not able!

  How foolishly you talk

  When you know we cannot walk!”

  Said the table with a sigh,

  “It can do no harm to try;

  I’ve as many legs as you,

  Why can’t we walk on two?”

  Our chairs were a mismatched bunch with high backs and low backs, with súgán seats and timber seats, and because they were all unique I always felt that each one received you differently. At Christmas these chairs were joined by an armchair from the parlour. There was a mad rush for the privilege of sitting in this over the Christmas period, but my father had first claim, so when he was present that finished all arguments. As well as the armchair, into the kitchen came a one-armed leather sofa, and over this my mother threw one of the warm trap rugs, and there was also a great scramble for a place on this. The kitchen floor was washed with buckets of water, and as soon as it had dried out the scrubbed tables and chairs were brought back in and then the visiting furniture from the parlour was brought down. The two parlour pieces gave the kitchen a different look. It somehow looked as if we were expecting important visitors. But there was one more thing to be brought from the parlour to the kitchen for Christmas and that was the gramophone. To us it was the most important item of all, but it could not be brought down until Christmas Eve when all the decorations were up.

  Bringing the Christmas

  WHEN THE LEAVES began to fall, we drew the turf home from the bog. Every year my father declared that he would do it earlier the following year, but despite all his good intentions it always seemed to run late. Sometimes he hired a rickety old lorry belonging to Janey Jack Owen who lived across the river. I loved to sit on the red leather seat high up in the cab which gave me a great view out over surrounding ditches so that I could see fields and houses that I had never seen before. The seat bounced up and down with the bumps in the road and the hammers and wrenches that were strewn around beneath our feet rattled noisily in harmony with all the other creakings of the old lorry. Janey Jack Owen was dark and handsome and it fascinated me to watch his brown hands pull the big lorry into position. A drive in a lorry was a whole new experience for me and Janey Jack Owen, with his black boiler suit that smelt of oil and petrol, brought a new dimension to our country living. But more often the turf was drawn home by the jennet and crib. Our jennet was the only unchristened animal on the farm; he was just the jennet, a bit like the Taoiseach, the President or the Queen. He did not like the long trips to the bog, but at least it signalled that the year’s work was beginning to wind down and his daily trips to the creamery would soon be phased out.

  Once the turf had arrived into the yard, it was our job to stack it into an old stone house with a sloping galvanized iron roof. We arranged a conveyor belt system whereby two of us flung the sods in the door and two others stacked it against the back wall, working forwards. The aim of the two out in the yard was to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the two stackers by hopping as many sods as possible off them, and sometimes sods came back out in retaliation. Finally, when we came to the end of the load, the broken turf that we called “ciarans” was piled up in the corner and also the really tiny bits called the “brus” that were very good for lighting the fire. When the house was full my father built a reek with the remaining loads and thatched it with straw.

  Our house was surrounded by trees, and winter storms brought some of the old ones down, so before
Christmas my father brought out the long cross-cut saw and, having cornered a victim to pull the saw with him, he got to work. Then the tree lengths had to be split with a sledge and wedges and finally made smaller again with a hatchet. After that we piled the wood up at the end of the house where it was a sign that Christmas was around the corner and an insurance policy against the cold winter. When my father was splitting the logs, we kept an eye out for a really nice-looking log that would be the right length and would fit snugly across the back of our open fire. It had to be just right because it would be our Christmas log, or “Blockeen na Nollag” as my grandmother called it. The final selection made, it was hidden at the back of the pile in case some uninformed adult might split it up into ordinary logs.

  Beside the reek of turf my father made a pit for the potatoes and this was also covered with straw against the frost. Here, too, was the pit for the mangles and turnips – the mangles for the horses and the turnips for kitchen consumption. The finest turnip to pass through his hands was put aside for the Christmas candle.

  As he pitted the potatoes he filled four bags to be taken with the geese to town relations: Golden Wonders for Aunty Maggie because she had always liked them when she had shared house with my father before he got married, and Kerr’s Pinks for Cousin Nonie because she lived alone and considered Golden Wonders too big for her saucepan. He always complained about Cousin Nonie’s choice of potatoes: “Bloody woman – reared in the country and now with a pot too small for a decent spud. What is the world coming to?” Despite his complaints he still filled the bags and lined them up against the stone wall of the small house at the end of the garden where the geese were already swinging from the rafters. Beside them he put a bag of turnips for Aunty Maggie, who got special attention because my father had a soft spot for her.