Boxing Day
Dearest Mummy,
In true Boxing Day style, I feel quite SOGGY today! Very content & tired & lazy, but I felt I must write & thank you for your Christmas presents & also we heard on the news today that Dominica had big earthquake tremors yesterday afternoon and we are wondering if you felt them too. What a horrid thing on Christmas Day, but fortunately they said there was no damage & no one hurt.
I hope you had a really happy day and lots of nice presents & goodies. Your little parcel to Lindy hasn’t arrived yet, but I got new wallets for Cec & Linda & one for Charlie for his birthday from you & they were all greeted with cheers. They all needed them & I was able to get really nice ‘Buxton’ ones with your money so they were very pleased. For Charlie’s Christmas I got him a good Parker pen. He has just had cheap ball points usually & lost them so frequently that it wasn’t worth while getting him anything else, but he was saying he would like a Parker pen one day, so I thought he would probably take care of it now & he was delighted. After buying all these things for the family from you I got quite frantic wondering what to get me, before I spent your money on bacon and marmalade and coffee! Not that there was nothing I wanted, but what to choose! In the end, I got a dark red wool skirt – it is pleated all round & I look a bit like one of those plump hula girls in it, but I like it! I have a dark red sweater which matches & thank you very much!
We had a lovely Christmas, but strenuous of course! We set out for Midnight Service at about 10:45 pm on Christmas Eve & picked up Mrs. Martin. Charlie was serving & Lindy in the choir & of course the church was full- lots of young people which was nice. Afterwards we went home & got to bed about 2 & how nice that L. & C. don’t wake us at the crack of dawn now! We opened stockings & had breakfast at about 9:30 am, & then L. & C. went to 10:30 church & I washed up, made beds, stuffed the turkey & got it in the oven at 12:00. By then they were home & we opened presents – Charlie’s big present was a tape recorder which he longed for, so his day was made. I got a lovely ‘hostess gown’ & slippers, L. a ski jacket & Cec car seat covers etc. Will send a list later. Our guests for dinner, Dr. & Mrs. Shimizu, from Japan & Helga & Gisbert Winniwisser & little Karsten from Germany came at 5 o’clock & they all enjoyed our Canadian Christmas dinner. My pudding flamed beautifully & we had crackers & wore paper hats!
Will write properly later – have a big Lab party here tomorrow. Lots of love & thanks & happy New Year from us all to you & Auntie Moo. Love Cyn.
A Family History in Letters 