It was late afternoon on Christmas Eve and Lily was sitting comfortably in her armchair in the snug next to the window.
The sky had been a clear blue all day and now that the sun was setting, there were streaks of pink-purple zigzagging dramatically over the village green, the Norman church, and the row of oak trees opposite Lily's cottage.
Lily had enjoyed the day: church in the morning, a stroll around the village greeting all she met with a “Merry Christmas”, a lunch of soup and sandwiches, and then an afternoon's entertainment with Radio Four.
There had been a dramatised ghost story, always a favourite with Lily, and then the uplifting annual Carol Service from King's College, Cambridge.
What better way was there to spend Christmas Eve before the hurley-burley of Christmas Day with too much food, too much television and the frenetic excitement of the grandchildren with too many presents?
Lily loved it all.
With her radio now off, she indulged in one of her favourite Christmas Eve pastimes - remembering the Christmases of her youth, when her parents and brother had still been alive.
She closed her eyes and allowed the most precious memory of all to float into her mind: The Christmas of the Scarlet Ribbons.
She had been six and brother Teddy eight, and her parents were hosting their annual Christmas Eve party.
After bath time, the two of them were in their pyjamas and supposedly tucked up in bed, fast asleep.
But they had discovered the year before that if they huddled themselves together close to the bannisters at the top of the stairs, they could see the guests arriving.
Rationing after the war had only just finished so food was still in short supply and the money to buy it even scarcer, but every guest arrived with a dish of edible goodies to place on the dining room table.
Lily smiled at the memory.
When push came to shove, you didn't need much money to host a good party. Good friends was what it took and that was something money couldn't buy.
Lily had sent her request to Santa Claus weeks ago. Dear Santa, please can I have those Scarlett Ribbons for my hair. That's all I want. Love from Lily xxx
The Scarlett Ribbons had been displayed in the window of the haberdashery store on the High Street, and Lily thought them the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
How wonderful they would be tied at the ends of her pigtails. They would match her blonde hair perfectly and everyone would say how pretty she looked.
“I do hope Santa will bring me those Scarlett Ribbons,” she had said to her mother as she was being dragged away from the window.
“Perhaps he will,” Mother had replied, tugging Lily even harder, “but only if you're a really good girl.”
Lily had tried as hard as she could to be a good girl, so even when Teddy had been mean to her, she hadn't retaliated in her usual way.
“Stop wriggling,” Teddy hissed, bringing her back down to earth on the stairs. “Someone will see you if you move around and then we'll be banished to our bedrooms.”
“I'm not wriggling,” Lily hissed back. “I'm just moving your foot, which has been digging into me for ages.”
Mother appeared from the kitchen and the two shut their mouths tightly.
She was carrying a plate piled high with small sausages, tinned pineapple pieces and squares of Cheddar cheese pierced into little sticks.
As soon as she had disappeared into the dining room, Lily whispered, “I know we've had supper, but the sight of all this food has made my stomach ready for more.”
“We can always creep downstairs to have a midnight feast when Mother and Father are asleep,” Teddy suggested. “There's bound to be loads of food left.”
“We might even bump into Santa,” Lily said, excitement rippling through her body. “With my Scarlett Ribbons all wrapped up in Christmas paper,” she added.
“That's a chance I'm prepared to take,” Teddy declared confidently, and Lily giggled happily.
“And doesn't mother look beautiful,” she breathed.
Mother did indeed look beautiful.
She was wearing a pretty salmon coloured dress with a round neck and short sleeves. It fitted neatly into her waist and then flowed down past her knees in waves of soft material.
Her auburn hair had been styled specially for the party, and with glittering gold coloured ear-rings and necklace she looked like a Movie Star.
Lily wanted to be a Movie Star when she was older, which, to her way of thinking, would be much more fun than being a train driver, which was Teddy's ambition.
Someone had put the radio on and there was Lily's favourite song - Scarlett Ribbons by Harry Belafonte.
Her parents liked listening to the radio. Usually it was boring talk but sometimes, like now, it was popular music, which Lily adored.
Scarlett Ribbons for her hair wafted up the stairs.
Lily wanted those Scarlett Ribbons so much that it almost hurt.
Suddenly the door bell rang and Lily and Teddy shrank back like peas squeezing back into the pod.
And there was Father, looking so handsome in his best suit, pristinely white shirt and red tie, welcoming the latest arrivals.
It was John and Dorothy Clarke, their next door neighbours, with a large bowl of trifle.
Trifle!
Lily and Teddy loved trifle and they could almost taste it as they looked down on it.
Dorothy disappeared into the dining room with that enticing trifle while father hung up their coats.
Then Father and John huddled together, whispering in the hallway like spies for what seemed like an eternity.
Since they both taught at the nearby Boys Approved School - Father teaching Maths and Woodwork, and John History and Geography - Lily guessed that it was something to do with school.
But why they wanted to talk about school at a Christmas Eve party was a mystery to her.
Lily and Teddy hardly dared breathe for fear of being discovered, but Father and John eventually moved into the sitting room to join the party, and the two children let out a restrained sigh of relief.
Now there was the sound of laughter coming from the sitting room, and Father walking the family dog, Sandy, by the collar and straight into the kitchen, saying as he did so, “You can pee on the trees in the garden, you cheeky rascal, but not on our Christmas tree.”
A blast of cold air told the two children that the back door had been opened and presumably Sandy had been shoved outside, hopefully to learn from his mistake.
“Has Sandy done a wee on the Christmas tree?” Lily asked Teddy, eyes wide at the thought, and Teddy nodded. And the two had to work hard not to laugh out loud.
Lily didn't know when she fell asleep on Teddy's shoulder, but she was awoken by Mother's soft voice. “Now it really is time for you scallywags to go to bed.”
The next morning, Lily awoke feeling so hungry that she knew she hadn't crept down to devour the left-overs.
But that didn't matter because she saw that Santa had snuck in during the night with a pillowcase full of presents.
There it was at the end of her bed, and there was Teddy bounding into her room with his own pillowcase.
They were allowed to open these presents by themselves, before breakfast, and they did so with an intensity known only to children.
But there was nothing there resembling Scarlett Ribbons, even though they had disappeared from the shop window the previous day.
Lily's only consolation was the cowboy set from Auntie Joan via Santa. Goodie . . . she could pretend to be The Lone Ranger.
However, that joy was short-lived.
Teddy had received a nurse's kit also from Auntie Joan, and their parents reckoned that she'd got the labels mixed up.
Consequently, the presents were swapped and a very disappointed Lily pushed the nurse's kit under her bed in disgust.
Christmas lunch was a veritable feast: golden roast chicken, which was a speciality only for Christmas, creamy mashed potatoes, carrots and sprouts, with a rich onion gravy.
As always, the highlight of the meal was the Christmas pudding with a sprig of holly on the top. Father poured brandy over it and then set it alight, much to everyone's delight. And Mother always made more than enough white sauce so there would be plenty of seconds.
Teddy almost broke his front tooth when he bit into the threepenny bit hidden in his serving, but when he displayed the coin triumphantly with his tooth intact, they all laughed with the sheer joy of it all.
Then, after lunch, there was the revealing of the main present for each child.
Teddy was ushered outside the front door where his brand new two-wheeled bike awaited him.
His happiness was heart-warming to see, and after thanking his parents repeatedly, he was on that bike and zooming up and down the road, whooping with pleasure as he did so.
Lily waited with growing expectancy until her parents beckoned her into the kitchen.
Now she would find those Scarlett Ribbons waiting for her on the table . . . but what she saw instead thrust all thoughts of those stupid ribbons right out of her mind.
In front of her was the most incredible doll's house she had ever seen.
It was on two floors with two rooms on each floor, wallpaper covering the walls, and perfectly crafted pieces of furniture in each room.
Even more amazing were the four tiny figures sitting at the dining table. There was a mother, a father and two children, plus a sandy coloured dog lying by the pretend fire.
The outside was painted white and had a red roof and chimney, window frames and front door.
Lily stood in awe. Only Father could have made this work of wonder because it was identical to her drawings of her perfect house.
“Thank you, daddy,” she mumbled through tears of joy. “You're the best daddy ever.”
The sky was now jet-black-dark and shimmering stars were making patterns in the sky. It was getting chilly in the snug and Lily put another log on the fire, wiping away a tear as she did so.
That had been her best ever Christmas.
She had played with her doll's house endlessly, making up stories as she moved furniture and figures around.
No wonder then that she had become a successful author.
Much better to use your brains, she had decided when she was older, rather than relying on looks.
The secretive whisperings between John and her father? They had been discussing how to move the doll's house from John's house, where father had constructed it, to their home after the Christmas lunch.
So no surprise either that Lily's novels were about families, friends and secrets.
As for Teddy, he had followed his dream to become a train driver. Then he had been promoted to Station Master, and finally an advisor to the Secretary For Transport in the government.
And the Scarlett Ribbons?
When Lily returned to school after the Christmas break, one of her friends was wearing Scarlett Ribbons in her hair . . . and lily didn't bat a wink.
How could she compare cheap nylon ribbons which would quickly fray around the edges with a doll's house made especially for her by her father and still in good working order?
In fact, it was waiting in the corner of the sitting room for her grandchildren to play with the next day . . . their wonderful Christmas Day with their wonderful Grandma Lily.
Copyright 2024 Maggie Knutson
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