I’m honing my poker face for Christmas as I might as well be in a casino in Las Vegas with the two card sharks who keep beating me in our marathon games of Snap.
Ada and Ellen may only be aged five and three, but honestly they’d give poker player Daniel Negreanu a run for his money when Princess Posy or Princess Lovelylocks, Princess Moonbeam or Princess Tilly are turned up in unison from our themed Usborne pack of playing cards.
Despite the fact that, this Christmas Eve, Santa Claus will bring another sackload of toys to add to their Aladdin’s Cave of teddies and dolls, princesses and unicorns, books and jigsaws, tricycles and ice-cream vans, it won’t deter them from taking on Gaggy Áine in some serious card playing.
The concentration on their little faces, the clarity of their memories, their powers of observation, the competitiveness of their quests to win, would certainly have made their great-grandfather proud.
George Ryan, formerly of this parish, was a card shark and lifelong bridge player. He often recalled the all-night card games – German Whist and Twenty Five – that were part of the Christmas ritual when he was a young lad growing up in Dundalk.
Back in the 1930s and 1940s, midnight Mass was delivered in the starched prose of Latin with Adeste Fideles (O Come, All Ye Faithful) and Silent Night ringing out through the rafters as the devout congregation genuflected and prayed in the pews of the Redemptorist church. The magic and mystery of Christmas flickered in the candlelight and wafting scent of incense as Baby Jesus lay in the straw-filled crib.
The celebratory ritual continued back home on the Point Road where my granny would serve up a big Irish breakfast of bacon and eggs, griddle bread and tea you could trot a reindeer on, before the cards were shuffled and dealt until dawn. Tricks were won, tables were thumped, trump cards were thrown down, arguments and analysis rose and fell as the fire crackled in the grate and a weak December sun peeped up tentatively over the Irish Sea.
[ ‘Trust me, I’m a family Christmas expert and these are the rules to live by’Opens in new window ]
Of course, the children – Paddy and George, Marie and Claire, now all stardust out there in the ether – had been whooshed off to bed earlier in a cloud of pipe smoke and hot toddy aromas before there was any chance of Santa Claus sliding across the roof. According to George, Santa actually joined the card game on occasions if he felt the reindeers needed a rest and some sustenance.
Daddy also liked to confirm that turnips, a staple of those times, were a favourite repast for Blitzen and Vixen, Dasher and Prancer.
Due to their magical powers, it is the very same reindeers who will carry Santa’s much heavier sleigh across the skies this Christmas Eve.
While it is organic carrots my granddaughters leave out, the array of toys and games, tricycles and skates is way beyond the imagination of the generations of children who preceded them, even their own parents.
That is why I feel so reassured by the hours of pleasure Ada and Ellen have enjoyed by simply playing cards.
This pastime’s origins reach back a millennium to the cultures of the Orient, with hand-painted cards creating a pastime for the wealthy initially.
The stakes will be up for me over these Christmas days as I will be laying down the gauntlet with newly acquired packs of Jungle Snap, Garden Snap and Mermaid Snap. I know I’ll be up against it with my two eagle-eyed mini munchkins but in the interests of fighting ageism I will be happy to cheat at every opportunity I get.
“Go on, Gaggy Áine. You can do it.”