MUM'S LEGACY WILL LIVE ON

For Victoria Hislop, her mum’s festive spirit is the best gift she could have hoped for

- VICTORIA HISLOP

At Christmas, more than any other time of year, most of what we do as a family is dictated by traditions passed down from a previous age, some of them idiosyncratic, but all of them enduring and there is a lovely sense of continuity if they are carried out, year on year.

Many of our Christmas habits were adopted from my mother and grandmother, and how many generations they go back I wouldn't even know. Tree lights in white only (never coloured), game casserole (made by my mother) on Christmas Eve, carols from King's College Cambridge on the radio (always), putting a carrot and a glass of sherry for Santa by the fire before bedtime, stockings for everyone, regardless of age, pausing lunch to watch the Queen on TV (now the King, of course) and so on.

FAMILY TRADITIONS

My mother was the central figure at Christmas for the first 60 years of my life and, for the first 25, so was my grandmother, the latter always sitting quietly in the corner, with her best pearls on, Cherry Red lipstick by Yardley on her lips (her gift from me and my sister every Christmas).

These days were the highlight of our year, full of food and laughter and always spent with my aunt and uncle and members of older generations, including a toothless great-grandfather who had been born in 1870. In the 1960s, he was well into his 90s, so I now wonder what traditions had passed through the family even from his childhood, which had begun in the middle of the Victorian era.

My mother was in a residential home for the last couple of years of her life, but she was 92 when she passed away, and I need to believe she was ‘ready’ in her own way. Having said that, the first Christmas without her felt very strange. Not only was she a palpable absence, but I found myself almost mirroring her actions.