Christmases remembered with sinking despair . . .

Malachy McCourtLimerick"Ah Christmas! You pagan kaffir and if you ever X out the birthday of ht baby Jesus again I'll give you a clitter in the ear followed by a good fong up the arse."That bit of pious dialogue from the uncle with a face like the hide of a dead dog. For most of the people it was a time of bustle, busyness and "getting stuff in", decorating the house with a welcoming red candle in the window, the holly and ivy sprigs, and garlands around the pictures and moldings. The securing of the best goose, the plumpest turkey, the floury spuds, the creamed cauliflower, the plum pudding, the fruitcake, the biscuits, the sweets, the teas, the minerals.

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`There was that sinking feeling of hope not being realised, the eternal abyss of emptiness within, nostalgia for what never was and hope for what never could be.'

`Ah Christmas! You pagan kaffir and if you ever X out the birthday of the baby Jesus again I'll give you a clitter in the ear followed by a good fong up the arse."

That bit of pious dialogue from I don't remember my first awareness of the season of Christmas and presents and celebrations. Whatever spiritual beginnings there may have been were soon avalanched by materialism, by the prayers to Santy Claus for guns, Indian headdresses, games, trains, lorries, motor cars, cowboy outfits, bikes and all.

There is a fierce competition these days on the "we were so poor that. . ." theme that I hesitate to enter into it but there were three Christmases that I remember with sinking despair, the crash of hope, the destruction of faith in God, Santy and prayer when all I got was a penny jotter: the next year a halfpenny - and the following year an orange.

I had been told that if I was a good boy I would get what I prayed for so I had come to the early conclusion from observing the acquisitions of the well-off toffs that being poor was a sin. I have since found out that poverty is a disease, not a defect of character but it only affects the very poor. So there was nothing like Christmas and its aftermath for making the poor child feel as worthy as a wad of used lavatory paper.

But as the man said, hope springs eternal and as a joyful season approached once more I'd give God, Santy and prayer one more chance. Though nothing had changed, the mother was still receiving the miserable pittance of 13 shillings a week from the dispensary, the father was still disappeared, we were still getting the bag of soaked turf from men who were pillars of the church who hosed it down to make it heavier and thus more profitable and the free boots from St Vincent de Paul.

Despite all that and the rage at the Happy Christmas greetings, the hearty laughter, the teeming pubs, the crowded churches with their beautiful cribs with the holy family surrounded by the shepherds, the ass, the cow, the sheep breathing warmth on the baby Jesus, there was that sinking feeling of hope not being realised. There was that feeling of being the outsider, the eternal abyss of emptiness within, nostalgia for what never was and hope for what never could be.

On the way to the most romantic of all church services, Midnight Mass, the stars had a special glitter and stepping on frozen shallow puddles caused cracks to shoot to the edges. We were on our way to faith, hope and glorybe-to-God in the blazingly lit warm house of the Heavenly Father. More often than not the Spirit was dampened by a dreary sermon on the meaning of it all only to be revived by the choir singing Adeste Fidelis and Silent Night and the magnificent voices of May and Michael McNamara singing in duet Oh Holy Night. You'd want to cry for the loveliness of it all and talk about the bosom of the church, this was it Alanna and you'd want it to go on forever. But out we'd go into the now cold dreary night and back to the damp dank dark lane house to sleep in the pissed-in flea-and lice-infested bed.

In the morning you'd look for the magic in the pencil that you got from Santy and look up and see only the sorrow in the face of the mother who had neither the imagination nor the means to make it better. And you'd pretend that it was the most unique pencil that anybody had ever gotten any time anywhere. Later on you'd try to look as if you were enjoying the pig's head and the spuds with dripping as we couldn't afford the butter. But wait! The mother has managed a miracle for sweet. She has managed to produce the luxurious mirage of the poor: BIRDS CUSTARD AND JELLY DELUXE, and as they'd say with that I wouldn't call the queen my aunt. And out you'd go to play with the lads and lie to them about what you got from Santy and they showed you what they got and they knew you were lying.

Roll forward to America, to New York. Ah Yes. There are times when the old rage begins its consuming march but than I realise that I am no longer the powerless guttersnipe with his snotty nose pressed against and smearing the window looking in at the delights he cannot have. All I have to do is act as if all I wish for were present - and feel gratitude for the abundance and love now in my life; and for the sobriety I've enjoyed for 13 Christmases.

Malachy McCourt grew up in Limerick then emigrated to the States. He will be performing in A Couple of Blaguards by his brother Frank McCourt which opens at the Andrew's Lane Theatre in Dublin on January 5th and in Limerick during the first week in February at the Bell Table Theatre . In May his own book, A Monk Swimming, will be published in the US by Hyperion.