UPDATE 22nd December: You do not disappoint! I’ve laughed, I’ve wiped away a tear or two, and I’ve had my heart well and truly warmed. Thank you – thank you to all of you who shared a memory. I’ve genuinely had a lovely time reading them.
I noticed a few themes popping up. Frankly, it’s alarming how sneaky some of you are! The number of you who were able to find your presents ahead of time and then sneak them out of their boxes, play with them, then return them to their boxes afterwards – without a trace – was shocking. I’m very impressed. It actually made me feel quite sorry for your parents, until I realised what they were doing to you, the trolling that they did. There were countless memories about crestfallen children thinking they’d missed their heart’s desires, only to have their parents spring a last-minute surprise and turn it all around again. What a rollercoaster. Some plans were quite elaborate too.
What really touched me, though, was the sense of respect and gratitude in so many of your memories, about what your parents went through to enable the memories in the first place. It’s easy for people to forget that at this time of year – especially children – so to hear the recognition in some of your stories really got me. So too did the memories of families coming together over games, whether they did it routinely as part of a Christmas tradition, or came together only for the day. It didn’t often matter what the game or machine was, it was the people gathered around to play it that was the point.
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Those kinds of memories are of course magnified when the people involved in them are now no longer with us. They might be friends we no longer see or loved ones who’ve passed on; whoever they were, you do them an honour by holding their memories so strongly still.