ghosts of Christmas

The first 'real' Father Christmas I clapped eyes on, was in the infants school just before the end of term.  I knew he couldn't be the real Father Christmas but just to be on the safe side I chose not to upset him, as I had my heart set on a toy vacuum cleaner as my main present this year.  Not that my house needed hoovering, I just wanted it,  it seemed better than a doll, and I already had a bike.  I actually ordered  this, vacuum cleaner directly from Father Christmas, in the year 1963 and I sent the letter to Look North, a news program in our area.  Unfortunately the woman presenter foiled my ambition..when she read out my letter on the television program she read that I wanted a 'bathroom cleaner' and hence I did not get what I initially ordered.  There was a glut of Ajax in our house that year, cheers to technology.
This year, in 63.  I remember we were making paper chains, and drawing angels, and wasting a lot of time with glue and arty things..which I adored.  I didn't get a part in the Nativity but by God my Tiny Tears doll did...  I pushed her to the max to get the part..she was Jesus, I passed her off as the baby Jesus..and SHE WAS A GIRL wearing a pink gingham romper suit !!! nobody noticed, not even Joseph or Mary..nor the wise men in their tea towel headresses.  It broke my teddies heart as he wanted to be in it too..but I don't think bears go down well in Jerusalem..almost a bad as Christians.
   So..Father Christmas, I waited all day, kept looking down the corridor, wondering if he would turn up on a sleigh..I listened for the jingle of the bells, for the pitter patter but nothing.  It wasn't until the last hour of class that he turned up on his bike.  I reckon he must have borrowed it as it was like one I have seen in the Wizard of Oz...with a basket on the front.  I saw him through the window, so I thought I had better sit down and look like a good little girl.  All the boys and girls were called up and given a card and a present.  They all were different sized.  They were called by the register which ran alphabetically, my name being towards the very end.  When I got to actually be six inches away from Father Christmas I noticed that this was not his only job..he was wearing pit boots,  just like my dads.  I could not smell mince pies and sugar plums only a rather grandady cigs and beer smell, as if he had been in the Snug at the Miners Institute all afternoon.  I smiled and looked like a normal happy child that I occasionally was, he gave me a card and said this is for you.  Politely I said thank you Father Christmas.
He gave me, a bookmark..
He gave me, a flat. tassled edge book mark
I was not impressed.
Please say that this is not the real Father Christmas, I wondered what my true worth was, to receive a bookmark..a bloody bookmark .  But my face reflected the Season of Joy and Goodwill.  It was at that point I realised never to expect anything of anyone, as you will always be disappointed.  The only joyous thing is, a bookmark for me was, the best gift I could have received.  I read all the books in the library just so I could end the life of that
bookmark and never see it again.