Christmas Memories - Peter and Rupert

Peter and Rupert, who live at Evington Home in Leicester, share their Christmas memories

“I was born at the top of Scotland, so I was totally removed from where we are now. We did celebrate Christmas. It was very exciting and noisy with lots of people around. Both parents prepared things ready for Christmas. I did get presents at Christmas but don’t ask me now what they were!

"It’s interesting, we didn’t grow up with the idea of Father Christmas bringing us presents, it was just an ordinary family Christmas. We just had a simple straightforward Christmas meal of chicken. And my mum always made a traditional Christmas pudding. I don’t think I really helped in the preparations, as I was too young to get involved really. I was an only child, I got everything from my parents, they were good parents. My parents did spoil me, but not in a bad way. Christmas had a Scottish twist to it. We had Scottish shortbread, because I was up there.

"After I was married, we still went to Scotland to my parents for Christmas and my wife liked to try all the different things on the menu.”
– Peter, 88

“I was back home in Jamaica. It was a special time, eating and making merry, talking and dancing. Christmas was a different time, you visited friends and played games and sang a lot. And everybody went to church. We ate rice and peas and chicken and fish, it was a very special big meal. We had Christmas pudding with rum in it, when we were adult, but as a boy it was about playing cricket and other games. I got presents at Christmas, but we appreciated it, people don’t always appreciate it because they have too much of one thing.

“We had Christmas trees planted in the garden. We would sit round it and eat Christmas cake and if you were at the age when you could have Christmas drink, then you would have a drink, but you were not allowed to have drinks if you were not of age. It was always hot in Jamaica, but at that time of the year it began to get cooler. We always got a new set of clothes at Christmas and to be honest, I still have a shirt, I think it is still at home, it would be fifty years old now, because my nephew used to give me a shirt as a Christmas gift and that was from when he was two years old. His dad bought it so that he could give it to me. I wore that shirt twice then kept it so it didn’t wear out. It is even more precious to me now as my nephew died about 16 months ago.”
– Rupert, 89

If you enjoyed reading about Peter and Rupert, you might like to read Margaret's Christmas memories