'This is my fourth Christmas without my father who died during Covid - I still miss him terribly'
'I am one of the lucky ones in that I had a magical childhood spoiled rotten by my parents who adored me'
Christmas is always a special time of year - to me it means Santa Claus, the happy faces of the innocent, precious children and grown ups actually being pleasant and nice to each other for a change.
But it also means the church, mass, the Christmas crib, choral music and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.
This is my fourth Christmas without my father Johnny who died during Covid in the summer of 2020 at 80 years of age and I still miss him terribly.
I can still remember the last conversation I had with my Dad standing at the front door of his house in wonderful form despite the pandemic and days later he was in hospital for a life or death operation which he never survived.
Thinking of him always brings me back to my childhood growing up in a two up two town little house on Mary Street in Drogheda.
I am one of the lucky ones in that I had a magical childhood spoiled rotten by my parents who adored me and a late aunt, Maura Smith, who had no children, and treated me like her own son.
Of course there were hard times and little money coming in, in the 1960s but mam and dad ensured we never wanted for anything.
I can remember some of my earliest Christmases being washed in a plastic tub in front of the open fire and my mother Carmel putting the best clothes on me and my sisters Geraldine , Marie and Betty .
I remember my first ever toy car when I was 2 or 3 years of age and flying up and down Mary Street in it - thankfully there was little traffic in those days.
My mother used to love making her pudding and Christmas cakes and we would all sit enthralled looking at her doing it.
Mam would march us all down the town on Christmas Eve all hand in hand to get her few last minute presents, and we would collect a few coppers from people we met along the way.
There used to be a fabulous Woolworths store in Drogheda then and another shop across the road which also had all the toys.
I will never forget one Christmas, I think I was around seven and we were hit by a blitz of snow. The whole of Drogheda was like a picture postcard covered in white and families struggled to drive around it up and down its hills.
There is a famous hill up to our old house called Barrack Lane, and Dad made it halfways up before skidding all over the place. We were screaming like lunatics in the back of the car thinking we'd never make it home for Christmas.
By that stage my mother had enough and got us all out of the car and marched us home, five minutes away. Dad abandoned the car until Stephen's Day.
They were the happiest of days where the simple things in life put a smile on our faces.
I remember Christmas Days playing cowboys and Indians with my friends and kicking ball from one end of the day to the other. Nobody got fancy gadgets, they were all simple toys and we had great fun with games like monopoly and Subbuteo.
My father is buried not far from where we used to live. I would give anything to have five more minutes with him. Thankfully my mother is in fine fettle at 85 year old and the boss of our family.
Every year since the seven of her children all grew up, married and left home we would have a Christmas party in her house.
But now with her four daughters, three sons, husbands, wives, grandchildren, their boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives plus five great grandchildren we had to move the party to a hotel last because the crowd was too big.
Mam and dad met when they were 14 year old and he used to carry her books home from school. They got married at 21 and I was born when they were 23.
The whole extended family is around 50 people which I find incredible. We had a wonderful day last Saturday and my mother had a ball and that's what Christmas is all about.
So I want to wish each and every one of you a very happy and peaceful Christmas. If you have a chance please say a prayer for little Kyran Durnin, the little Drogheda boy missing for over two years, and that his body will be found.
I hope you all have a wonderful time over the festive period and enjoy every second of it.
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