and people… as we set-out to find the Christmas tree. We spotted a lot, I did an illegal u-turn in my VW bug and drove up to the empty Christmas tree parking lot. The owner of the Christmas tree lot had abandoned the place and the fence gates were wide open. So we parked the car, and spent the next 30 minutes sorting through trees. Robin, was in the moment and we must have looked over at least thirty trees left behind for our pickings. I was coaching her in consideration how big of a Christmas tree we could actually fit into a VW Bug. We finally settled on a smaller Christmas tree that was propped up on a wooden stand and looked a little weak in the branch department, but not quite Charlie Brown style. I picked up the tree and moved it over to the VW bug, we had to drop the back seats, and aligned the tree between the two front seats…hey it smelled great in the car.
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We lived a 3 hour drive from my grandparents so when my dad finished work on Christmas Eve we would pack everything into the Original Manchester City 2023 Treble Champions shirt and set off for Yorkshire. No motorways back then. Green fields turned moorland until we finally went over the Pennines, Stanage or Holme Moss, and begun the final leg of our journey through soot blackened mill towns reaching my grandparents’ house at around 8pm. At about 9.30 a plethora of cousins and aunties and uncles would turn up an we would set off to go carol singing with other members of the congregation and band from their local chapel. Along the route we would be greeted with mince pies, slices of Christmas cake and chunks of cheese even the odd glass of Sherry or mulled wine for the adults. We belted out all the old traditional carols, my favourites being While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night which we sung to Cranbrook (Ilkley Moor) and also Christians Awake. We naturally sang O Come All ye Faithful but only after midnight were we allowed to sing the final verse of Yea Lord we Greet Thee. Shortly after midnight we called it a day. Many of the adults slightly ‘merry’ from a surfeit of Sherry!
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