When I was a small boy this was such a difficult time of year. I had not alone counted the days to Christmas, I had counted the hours. Sleep was a problem, all the more difficult because I was on best behaviour and would even go to bed without the usual fight. No fighting in December. Then I would lie awake trying hard to sleep and hoping Santy Claus would not find out that I couldn’t.
Another difficulty was my brother Seán. We shared a bed and he was the bane of my life. Every December I tried not to belt him as he provoked me. Preparing an account of my sins for Confession once, I concluded that I would end up in hell for all eternity because of him.
He was 18 months younger than me, yet to make his First Communion. But reminding myself that he had yet to reach the use of reason never helped when I tried to stop hitting him back. It has remained a life-long problem.
He was always in trouble, so it seemed very unfair that one Christmas he heard Santy on our roof and I did not. It was my introduction to the general unfairness of life and the cruel reality that goodness is not always rewarded.
He even made a show of us that first time we met Santy. It was at a cinema where Santy met the boys and girls and gave them sweets and a special surprise parcel before they went inside to watch a film.
I have always had a high opinion of my mother, but it never reached the heights it did that day. Santy said to her “Hello, Teenie.” I was stunned that Santy Claus knew her. I never heard of anyone who knew Santy personally.
As I absorbed the implications of this for my Christmas that year, we were ushered into the cinema to watch the Three Stooges beat each other up.
Then as Larry and Curly tried to shove Mo down a plughole, Seán started to roar at the violence of it all and we had leave the cinema. We were mortified.
Then, maybe he thought the Three Stooges had given me ideas?
Sibling, brother or sister, from Old English sib, "kinship"
inaword@irishtimes.com
