My favourite Christmas memory…with Morgan McCarthy, Lucy Dillon and Lili Hayward
With just under a week to go until Christmas Day we’re feeling quite festive and our authors have been sharing their favourite Christmas memories with us.
Morgan McCarthy, author of The House of Birds
It was our first proper Christmas tree. I’d been working in a department store and had spent most of my salary on a collection of beautiful baubles, from delicate crystal robins to heavy crackled glass cannonballs. We’d also been to the Cologne Christmas markets and I’d spent most of the holiday budget on more handmade baubles. I told my partner it would be worth it.
‘See,’ I said, as we stood back and admired the tree, smelling green and resinous, lit with tiny lights, covered in baubles in variations of gold. Then it fell down.
(In retrospect, it was a mistake to buy an over-sized tree and trim the branches on one side. And to hang all the heavy baubles at the front).
Perhaps my memory of that moment seems more precious in light of the destruction that followed, but I’ll always remember looking spellbound at the splendour of that tree, caught in a sudden uprush of pure Christmas magic.
Lucy Dillon, author of All I Ever Wanted
The year my sister and I went to the village Christmas party, and I won a dancing competition. This was the same night a violent storm blew in two windows in a top floor bedroom and the resulting gale nearly sucked my dad out into the Irish Sea as he struggled to hammer a board over the inky-black gap, but I have no memory of this at all, thanks to my triumphant performance of Superman by Black Lace.
Or, being Angel Gabriel in the primary school nativity play. It set me up for a lifetime’s passion for delivering ‘do you want the good news… or the less good news?’ type info.
Lili Hayward, author of The Cat of Yule Cottage
Usually involve my sister and my cousin. We’re close in age, and even now get called “the kids” and relegated to the end of the table! (Or the ironing board with a tablecloth on it, when we actually were kids). We act accordingly and usually get very silly, helped along by my cousin’s lethal cocktails.
If you liked this, why not read
My Favourite Christmas memory with Jo Thomas and Debra Daley
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