A Look Back At Christmases Gone By and “I Believe In Father Christmas” (Does That Mean I’ll Get Presents?)

This is my 10th Christmas as a blogger, and boy, how things have changed in those 10 years. Regular followers around here will perhaps know what I am talking about, and I expect most people’s lives will have similarly changed, but to sum up my own situation here are how things were back in 2016. As well as dealing with all the admin attached to Mr WIAA’s business, I was still turning up at work every day to a traditional office where we still used paper, pens and folders. I had work colleagues I sat next to and we had Christmas lunches and nights out. I also however had to look after my mum who lived in a retirement flat nearby, and had an adult DD back living with us after a period of independence. I felt like the squeezed filling in a sandwich. How on earth did I find the time to take up this new hobby called blogging?

The Sandwich Generation: 2016

The first big change happened in 2017 after the walls came down (literally) at my workplace, and the adoption of LEAN working (working from home, hotdesking and no paper at all). I didn’t last long, and threw in the towel later on that year. Time to try new things I thought. That plan however was severely tested as my mum’s health deteriorated and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in early 2018. After struggling on myself for nearly a year, we eventually found a lovely care home for her and she was there for over seven years, only passing away last month. As for DD, she met Mr Right in 2017, moved in with him in 2018 and got married in 2023. They are now happily ensconced in their new house with Alfie the puppy. Strangely enough, despite having more time on my hands now, my blogging output has very much diminished over the years, but what can I say, that first year I was a very keen blogger!

Empty Nesters: 2025

But this time I’m going to look back at a Christmas from much longer ago, 50 years ago, as the 1970s seems to be the decade I return to time and time again around here – the decade when I listened to and consumed the most music. Also I spotted this meme on social media recently and fully agreed with the sentiment (where did all those years go?).

How I feel all the time!

All the mainstream artists of the day released a seasonal ditty back in the ’70s and ironically they are songs we still hear on the radio and on compilations today. Why is this? Well we did consume our music in a very different way back in the ’70s, with whole families sitting down to watch Top of the Pops every week – a few slots on TOTP pretty much guaranteed you the coveted Christmas No. 1 position, and boy must those royalties still be rolling in for Slade and Wizzard, who between them assumed blanket coverage of December 1973’s airwaves with both Merry Xmas Everybody and I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.

By Christmas 1975, an artist I had not really taken much heed of until that point, released a very satisfying seasonal record called I Believe In Father Christmas. His name was Greg Lake, first of King Crimson and then of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Sadly, Greg was yet another casualty of 2016, my first year of blogging and the year when so many music legends passed away (George Michael, David Bowie, Prince…).

Greg wrote this song as an objection to the commercialisation of Christmas which in the intervening 50 years just seems to have got worse. Back in 1975 it reached No 2. in the UK Singles Chart but unlike some other Christmas songs from that era I feel it has stood the test of time. Something that I wouldn’t have known then was that the instrumental section between verses comes from a Suite by Prokofiev. If I had been a prog rock fan back then this might have made sense, but being a teenage girl I really wasn’t. Those of us who had older brothers were a bit more au fait with artists such as Emerson, Lake and Palmer who were attached to that sub-genre, but I didn’t, so was far more interested in my teen idols at that time, who often went by the name of David.

Thinking back to Christmas 1975, this song coincided with a very busy time for me education-wise as it would have been the year I sat my important Scottish “O Grade” Prelims (all 8 of them) in the build up to the holidays. Listening to a bit of festive music on our little kitchen transistor radio, whilst having breakfast before yet another big exam, would probably have been a bit of a tonic that set me up for the day. Also, thinking back, the ’70s were a bit of a grim time in Britain, so maybe the public took to buying seasonal tunes in their millions to make life just that little bit cheerier. Other big-selling records from that time were by Mud, Johnny Mathis, Paul McCartney, Mike Oldfield, Boney M and even The Wombles.

Sadly, very few contemporary artists have released anything recently that I think will be remembered in 50 years time. Even this year’s festive No. 1 by Kylie, called Xmas, has very little going for it and it seems she is bargaining on inspiring a new dance craze with the four letter title, like the YMCA boys did with their song. I have my doubts.

The Christmas flowers from DD’s in-laws that arrived when I was writing this!

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it from all of us here at WIAA Towers – only myself and Mr WIAA now, but we will be seeing DD and Mr DD on Christmas Eve (they want to spend the big day on their own this year as “it was just so stressful hosting last year” – wish I’d tried that one back in the day!). Have a good one.

Until next time…

I Believe In Father Christmas Lyrics
(Song by Greg Lake/Peter Sinfield)

They said there’ll be snow at Christmas
They said there’ll be peace on Earth
But instead it just kept on raining
A veil of tears for the Virgin birth
I remember one Christmas morning
A winters light and a distant choir
And the peal of a bell and that Christmas Tree smell
And their eyes full of tinsel and fire

They sold me a dream of Christmas
They sold me a Silent Night
And they told me a fairy story
‘Till I believed in the Israelite
And I believed in Father Christmas
And I looked TO the sky with excited eyes
‘Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And I saw him and through his disguise

I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave New Year
All anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
They said there’ll be snow at Christmas
They said there’ll be peace on Earth
Hallelujah Noel be it Heaven or Hell
The Christmas we get we deserve