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The 12 things of Christmas...

...that I've only read in books and watched on TV.

12. We definately did not have "The 12 days of Christmas"... and if you could kindly stop confusing me about whether it comes before or after.

11. The fireplace. When I was growing up, the "fireplace" was what you normally call your stove, and your grill, and your oven. The cooking was done on the fireplace, stuffed stockings had no business lying around our kitchenware!

10. The stuffed stockings. Those ones you would not dare stuff them with anything. Oversized, yes, but they were your only pair... for school, period. You'd see them in one color and one color only, grey, and you'd see them in one place and only one place, inside your only pair of school shoes.

9. Christmas cards. Ok maybe I saw one or two while i was growing up, but i could not get them out of the shop windows.

8. Christmas carols. They were all in english and the best we could do was to "listen along" while being played on radio.

7. Christmas Carol singers going around the neighbourhood. Those ones would never have gone three houses down the lane, i think it had something to do with maintaining the peace and quiet...

6. Wrapped up Christmas presents. Well the truth is it was not only about christmas, presents, in general, were never known to us as we grew up. But i remember i got a dollar once from a distant relative of ours, the day before one christmas and i was so chaffed.

5. The Christmas Tree. We had plenty of trees, but i think none of them would have fit in our house, plus i think it made more sense to chop it up for firewood, than to store it in the house for christmas.

4. The decorations. These we had nowhere to put them, and anyway its had not like we had them in the first place.

3. White Christmas. I later learnt it was white because of what is called snow, something that comes from the sky like rain, only its frozen, hence white.

2. Chimneys. Most of the fireburning was done outside. If we had to do it inside, we'd simply open the door.

1. Santa. Coming from the North Pole, i think he'd get tired if ever he had decided to come down here, we are way down south, plus I think he did not see any point in it, we had no chimney, or stockings, or wish lists (we only had wishes) or anything so there really was no point for him.
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