Ghost of cheapo Christmas past

I can’t complain about any of my childhood Christmases. They were replete with presents and sweets and that’s pretty much all I cared about at the time. My parents were more than reasonably generous – considering their budget was usually tight when I was very young. But there was one “traditional” present that provided me with the lesson that, sometimes, things don’t really live up to their promises. That was the store-bought Santa stocking, a bright and appealing package that contained a large helping of disappointment, unevenly distributed across a selection of exceedingly low-quality “novelties”.

Santa stockings appeared under the Christmas tree for several years in a row until, finally, somebody in charge of present-buying realised how crummy they were. And yet, somehow, despite knowing how bad these things were, I still felt a funny little pang of nostalgia when I found one of these stockings – somehow more or less unopened after all these years – in a vintage shop somewhere. Of course I had to buy it, just to revisit that early sensation of Christmas morning disappointment. The little packet of lollies was gone, which was a shame because that was the one thing in those stockings that was actually okay. Sugar is sugar, after all. Believe it or not, I still remember the taste of those tiny coloured sugar spheres, about the same size as the silver and gold cachous I used to filch from Mum’s pantry when she wasn’t looking.

Anyway the old-new stocking I found didn’t have the lollies. But it had the other stuff and as a dubious yuletide treat for you I’m going to share it, here and now, so you can get some sense of my childhood disappointment. Or perhaps you are old enough and from the right kind of family to know exactly what I’m talking about, in which case, nostalgia . . . (Be warned – may contain attempts at humour.)

The stocking had a cheap cardboard backing – invariably red – cut into a sort of stocking shape, with red fishnet stuff (kinky, right?) stretched over the front so you could see the tantalising treasures within. Usually there was a very cheap and unconvincing Santa mask of thin cardboard sticking out the top. If you were a particularly young and naive infant you might actually put this over your face and oblige your parents to feign surprise that Santa had apparently returned to the scene of his night-time revel at the Christmas tree. Perhaps, they might have speculated, he was anxious to get some more of the cake that had been left out for him the night before. Or perhaps not . . . But, oh, surprise, it’s actually just the silly baby with a cheap cardboard mask. Who knew? In the case of this particular example (see photo), some troubled youth has used Santa’s white beard as a convenient canvas for a disturbing artwork featuring bloodshed, murder and cruelty to animals (possibly a parrot, I don’t know). Santa’s deranged expression suggests he may have had a little too much Christmas sherry. (Or maybe it was all the ice and snow.)

Santa’s beard as canvas for problematic art: a man in underpants is shooting a parrot (note the leaf-shaped muzzle flash emerging from the barrel of the pistol. The parrot has time for a brief call for help before presumably expiring. At top right we see the man in underpants receive his just deserts from what might be a helmeted earthworm armed with a bren gun. He seems suitably aghast at his dismal fate. At bottom right we see some conversational hostilities between two chaps, one of whom may have a magic wand or one of those medieval spiky ball things.

If (when) a child tired of wearing a cheap cardboard Santa mask, with or without optional beard art, the next big thing was the cunning disguise. These plastic lens-less glasses with attached eyebrows would ensure that even the child’s own parents would be hard-pressed to recognise him/her/them. I guess.

Who is that small person with black leaves stuck to the top of their glasses? Does nobody know?

Now the real fun. The blow gun game elaborates further on the cruelty to animals theme introduced earlier, encouraging the child to irritate some cardboard miniature effigies of foolish, demented looking beasts by blowing little objects at them through a small tube. One can only imagine the hours of intense pleasure . . .

If the creatures of ocean and stream imagined they were going to escape from this Christmas bloodbath then they were gravely mistaken. Not one, but two fishing games, promising “lots of fun” (but not for the fish). One box depicts what must surely be a blue-fin tuna, while the other features a pair of coy, be-hatted fish doing some kind of strange dance with only their tails in the water. Are they really coy, or just koi? I don’t mean to carp . . .

Time to blow the jolly party whistle. Until the mouthpiece gets soggy. I give it 20 minutes.

I feel like I’ve spotted the wolf but frankly, I’m a bit worried about Tom Thumb.

You make two tiny balls go into the hippo’s eyes. Because of course you do.

Many children love to read. I know I used to. The Santa stocking people, plying their trade in far-off Japan, certainly knew that, and they catered generously to young bibliophiles with stories both new and recycled.

Please to note: the girl waves the flag to start the race while the boys compete to win her heart. The dog is confused but no matter, that is his whole job. The boy in the spotted jumper has a malignant expression. He is probably a cheat. I think there are lots of hectic shenanigans but the nice boy in the necktie wins the day. I believe that this is the book that the hit musical *Grease* was based on. It is called *Holidays* and also features trains and boats. These were left out of the musical version.

Basically chick-lit. The first one is a coming of age drama set against a rural backdrop. She fancies three guys and is having a hard time choosing. Meanwhile the milk is in the bucket, but for how long? *The Dolly’s Wedding* is a heavy tragedy as you can tell from her face. It’s really a shotgun wedding and it’s the groom holding the shotgun. The cops and the military are there to make sure she doesn’t do a bunk. The golliwog is an undercover reporter, taking pictures for his newspaper. This will win him a Pullitzer prize but that’s no help for Dolly. Her life is ruined. I think I read somewhere that this book inspired *The Handmaid’s Tale.*

I never found out what the heck was going on with this. Obviously it was pre-decimal currency so even if I’d saved my pennies they’d be useless today, except for scrap value, which isn’t that much. The missing persons are still missing, to the best of my knowledge.

Maybe you are wondering about the Mystery Box.

So this is Christmas. And that was an ancient cheapo stocking, back to haunt us like Marley’s ghost. To be honest, I probably got more fun out of it now than I ever did before, so maybe that’s the lesson I was meant to learn: wait until you get old, and everything in the distant past seems okay after all.

Merry Christmas to you, and also a happy new year.