Each child was given a shilling for each year of age to buy Christmas presents for the family with. Mother remembers when I (her only daughter at that stage), was about 7 yrs old, that I spent all my allocation of money on a scarf for Mother. I remember spending what seemed like hours in the shop over the dilema. The scarf was Mother's favorite colour and she never spent any money on herself. Mother was very touched and still has the scarf today (although very faded). Mother also said she had the dilemma of having to scrape up enough money for me to get the others a present.
One Christmas, times were very tough. Mother was frantic about not having good enough presents for us children. I would never had known until one day I happened to mention to Mother what was my most exciting Christmas memory for me. Mother was very interested as I told her of the Christmas morning I woke to find a shoe box size on the end of my bed, with a small (cheap) doll in it, and 2 or 3 assorted lollies, a few other small items for my hair and an orange! Mother was amazed and asked me why it was so exciting. I answered that the doll was like all the other children had, and I had always wanted one. What made it more exciting was unexpectedly finding the other things scattered around the box. It was like a treasure trove! I remember my younger brothers also having the same reaction. Mother sighed with relief; her ‘worst’ Christmas turn out to be my ‘most exciting’ J
Each Christmas, Mother found that I, as an older child, got resourceful in assisting Mother with the Christmas present dilemma. A shilling for each year of age wasn’t much, especially for the younger siblings, who needed help to spend it wisely. I had learn't my earlier lesson! Little tricks like e.g. each child bought Father a handkerchief (two and a half shillings each), and being six children, he was very thankful to get half a dozen of which he was in need off!
Another trick was to buy a packet of sweets or similar ‘treat’ we never had normally, and then divide the packet and wrap up the few in Christmas paper for each family member. Having not had any during the year made it extra special to have on Christmas Day. By the time we all had a little something from each of the six children it all added up to an interesting variety on the day. Finding creative ways to surprise everyone each Christmas became a competition among us older children.
