Childhood's Christmas
- emotional kaleidoscope

My childhood’s Christmas emotions were like a twisting kaleidoscope. Indigo longing of impatient waiting, tinged perhaps with a silver edge of secret anticipation flowed easily into cheerful yellow and orange delight on gazing at intricately folded tissue paper bells and balls, linked by pretty tissue streamers converting our Spartan 1940’s home into an Aladdin’s cave of enticing promise. Barely awake very early on Christmas morning, waiting for parents to wake and join my sister and me before  diving into our pillow-slips full of gifts, my misty inner world was pre-dawn pink and lilac with slowly surfacing expectations. These soon gave way to brilliant gold and red explosions of anticipation fulfilled in the reality of hoped-for treasures. Inevitably, as day wore on,  my sister and I would grow mutually envious of our respective goodies. My kaleidoscope revealed patterns of dismal green and grey. These would pass, but only slowly, with the struggle to accept the peace of looking beyond the pain of the moment.  Later, joining the family around the lunch table, enjoying the lavish dishes reserved for Christmas in those somewhat austere years, my inner colours moved again to warm browns and soft reds, knowing I was loved.  At day’s end, tucked between the sheets, eyes softly closing, all the colours of my Christmas kaleidoscope merged into slumber’s welcome darkness and shifting shadows of childhood’s dreams.