Anita Birt's Note Book

I live in a retirement community and our librarian asked us write about a memorable Christmas  I decided to write about my first Christmas in Wales.

A WELSH CHRISTMAS by Anita Birt

After crossing the Atlantic safely in late August and early September, 1944, I journeyed to South Wales to stay with my mother-in-law, Mam, and my husband, Bill's two sisters, Betty and Dossi, until the end of the war.


As Christmas approached we decorated the two downstairs rooms with paper streamers. Instead of pine cones our house was brilliant with branches of holly trees gathered from the nearby woods. Their red berries glowed. We had no spare coal to light fires in two rooms. Coal was rationed. Bill was home on four day's leave and the rain had stopped.

Mam's neighbours, the Moss family, kept a small flock of chickens. Food for the birds was strictly controlled and the flock carefully monitored by the authorities but Mr. Moss managed to secure a fine, fat cockerel for our dinner.

The pudding in a china basin and tightly wrapped in a white cloth burbled and steamed in a copper in the shed on Christmas day. The mouth-watering scent of roasting chicken tantalized our taste buds. The stuffing, the vegetables and gravy were perfect and little was left of the chicken at meal's end.

We cleared the table; time for the fruit-rich pudding freed from its shroud. Bill drizzled brandy over it, struck a match and touched the brandy, a blue flame flickered briefly and we clapped our hands. It was a grand, joyful Christmas.

My parents in Canada had sent butter and and dried fruits for cake making. Mam made the cakes and other goodies. The Christmas cake was topped with marzipan and finished with white icing. Small figurines, tiny green trees and small colourful baby-sized boxes populated the top of the cake.

Mam's brothers, their wives and children visited later in the day to enjoy a piece of cake and cup of tea. The Birt and Kitt families had made me welcome on my arrival in September. I loved them dearly.

A month or so later I cut some holly branches to brighten the house. As I entered, Mam snatched them from my hands and threw them out. "It's bad luck to bring holly into the house when it's not Christmas."

Merry Christmas from Anita
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