Mick Clifford: The children with the least deserve the most Christmas magic

The magic these children deserve is to have a place they can call home from which they can develop and grow and be better prepared to tackle the turbulent straits that life will inevitably throw up, writes Mick Clifford
Mick Clifford: The children with the least deserve the most Christmas magic

Is Refuge?  What A Homeless Whom Christmas Childhood Kids Not A Temporary Of Of Early Magic Bonus For But The

Some moments of the magic remain intact through the straits of life. 

Looking at my mother through the rear window of our parked car as she pops the letters into the green box outside the post office. There is a thrill in knowing that strange hands will eventually open the envelope. There is an anxiety that he may not consider me deserving of what I’ve asked for. He might conclude I acted the maggot during the year and will be dealt with accordingly.

On Christmas Eve, my father patiently explaining that he reckons Santa would be far more amenable to a glass of whiskey than a Coke or Fanta to wash down the chocolate cake we are leaving out. “It will keep him warm,” the old man says. “Long night out there.” 

My father has a serious face on him when he says this, like he, the adult, has to look out for his fellow adults, the Clauses, because most of their dealings are with children. And whiskey is only for adults. That sounds fair enough.

“Don’t worry, I won’t spare it,” the old man says, pouring a generous measure.

Entering the sitting room in the dark on the morning. I can still, a lifetime later, feel the cold. A light switches on and there, under the tree, the wrapped boxes have appeared overnight. Magic. Evidence that they were brought down the chimney is presented in the empty glass, the last amber drops proof that he drank it as my father knew he would.

He obviously wolfed down the cake as well because only crumbs remain. And over there, on the other plate, the half eaten carrot, looking like Rudolph took a lump out of it and that did the job for him. There is a scramble to unwrap presents but the magic in the room, the dregs of whiskey, the crumbs, the half-eaten carrot, all define the occasion, present the proof that he is real, he is Christmas.

Out through the sitting room window the dawn is lifting. He’s probably in America by now, racing against the night. On the other hand, who knows? 

If each of my schoolfriend's fathers are as familiar with Santa’s choice of tipple as is mine, he will hardly have managed to stay upright in the sleigh by the time he hits the Skellig rock, not to mind making it to New York.
If each of my schoolfriend's fathers are as familiar with Santa’s choice of tipple as is mine, he will hardly have managed to stay upright in the sleigh by the time he hits the Skellig rock, not to mind making it to New York.

There are more than 20 boys in my class. If each of their fathers are as familiar with Santa’s choice of tipple as is mine, he will hardly have managed to stay upright in the sleigh by the time he hits the Skellig rock, not to mind making it to New York. At least if he has tumbled into the icy Atlantic, the whiskey will be keeping him warm.

A few years later I’m cycling home in mid-December. Diarmuid Ring, who is a year below me in school, stops me, his hand raised like a garda directing traffic. “I see you’re getting an adventure set for the Christmas,” he says. Mother of sweet suffering Jesus, how does he know that? His family have a shop on New Street but his father isn’t the postman. Where did he get his hands on that level of confidential data?

“Your father was in yesterday,” he says, revelling in his role as the distributor of secrets. I keep a straight face, playing it cool as my world falls apart. (Diarmuid, unfortunately, is no longer with us, but one time a few years ago when we met I told him how he had killed the magic for me. He got a kick out of that. “I think you were getting to the point where something had to happen,” he said.)

After the encounter on New Street I’m cycling home out the Valentia Road with the head lifting off me. I had suspicions, and some of the lads in school would laugh when I gave my take on the subject, but deep down I knew that he was flesh and blood, with a taste for whiskey and chocolate cake.

At home I confront my mother. She looks relieved, as if she was wondering would I ever cop on. “Don’t tell the others,” she asks, referring to my younger siblings. Initially, I feel like I’m an adult now, in on the secret. After a while though, there is a sense of deflation. The magic is well and truly over.

These days I know of parents who don’t do Santa on the basis that it is deceiving their children, giving them a false sense of the world. Deceive, I say, deceive and create magic that that opens a childhood to wonder beyond themselves. I loved watching my own kids go through it even in this time when they grow up too fast in one way (and too slow in another).

Christmas with the magic is always a different experience. This applies just as much to parents, whose role is akin to that of a football manager who proclaims that managing is the second best thing after playing. Creating the atmosphere, patiently answering the questions about how he manages to shoot around the world over the course of a single night (“I’m glad you asked me that.”), seeing the faces, the joy, the wonder and purity of innocence. 

These days I know of parents who don’t do Santa on the basis that it is deceiving their children, giving them a false sense of the world. Deceive, I say, deceive and create magic that that opens a childhood to wonder beyond themselves.
These days I know of parents who don’t do Santa on the basis that it is deceiving their children, giving them a false sense of the world. Deceive, I say, deceive and create magic that that opens a childhood to wonder beyond themselves.

In one way it’s like getting a second shot at the whole thing.

But what of the kids for whom the magic is not a bonus of early childhood but a temporary refuge? What of those of the younger years among, at the last count, the 4,645 children who are homeless, living in hubs or hotel rooms, the thousands of others in direct provision centres? 

They do not have the harbour or secure base from which to experience and explore their developing world. They live often in a room with a single or both parents struggling to attempt to provide the illusion of normality. 

They cannot have friends over because that is against the rules. At school the brutal simplicity of ‘fitting in’ is something they must work at. They learn early on what is acceptable to their peers and what they are better off hiding.

Every Christmas, all manner of organisations and individuals do Trojan work to attempt to provide for these children an experience that might somehow substitute, briefly, for their reality. They are given access to the magic, they can for that short time feel free to feel normal. 

And then the New Year dawns and it’s back to a reality that is brutal and cold and predestines problems into the future and adulthood.

At this time, the children with the least deserve the most of our thoughts. Those in this country and those further away in places like Gaza where homes have been obliterated, parents murdered under a rain of bombs. 

But far more importantly, the plight of all such children deserves proper recognition all year round. The magic they deserve is to have a place they can call home from which they can develop and grow and be better prepared to tackle the turbulent straits that life will inevitably throw up. 

Such a home would also provide them with a few nice memories that will remain intact and warm all the way through life in the real world. Happy Christmas.

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