Our house was cold on December mornings but downstairs the Stanley would blaze away, trying to come into its own. When it eventually did, it wafted the sweet smell of sherry trifle through the airy old two storey.

As I sat to take a wee, I stared up at the giant turkey swinging coolly from the shower curtain. Blood dripped from its half-opened beak which made me feel queasy, but then I envisaged his soft white breast steaming on my dinner plate and my mouth began to water.

My thoughts quickly turned to confessions. What would I say this time? I've already used biting and kicking many times before. I could always say I swore. That wouldn't be a lie. The most I'd get would be three Hail Marys.

I couldn't wait to get confessions out of the way. Before we were allowed to indulge our thoughts with Santa, we were schooled to appreciate the meaning behind Christmas first. That came easy to me. I loved the story of the humble little family living in a stable but I didn't like the big dark confession box we had to enter in order to appreciate the nativity.

This for me, was the dark side of Christmas. Each time I entered the box, I lied, saying I had committed some sin or other, just for the hell of it. I mean there's no such thing as bad children at Christmas. Not when Santa is on his way. He's more intimidating than that other man who wore a beard.

The trip to town on Christmas Eve was as traditional as the bird hanging from the shower curtain. After confessions, we were allowed to wander the streets entering brightly-lit shops looking for cheap perfume and diamond-patterned socks.

As I remember, nobody minded what presents they got at Christmas. The thrill was in the unwrapping. Still is for me. You would always meet someone from school and they looked all shiny and scrubbed up. Their smiles bigger, their greetings cheerier.

Glass eyes would descend from the pub and off they'd stumble, warbling their own rendition of 'The Drummer Boy'. Down an alleyway, a couple argue over who's going to whose in-laws after the Christmas dinner. I couldn't wait to get back home. The sooner I was home, the sooner I'd get to bed and the sooner Santa would be here.

I hated bath time. There was no such thing as Johnson's No Tears when I was eight and nothing incensed me more than my mother's long nails digging into my tender scalp.

I loathed the way my wet, straggly hair would drip onto my bare shoulders. I longed to be in front of the Stanley sitting cross-legged with a towel draped round me already half-asleep, but refusing to succumb completely.

My auntie Sissy was coming to babysit and I wanted to see her. Aunt Sissy was a bonafide spinster. Her drawers were constantly full of sweets and we loved her for that alone. God help her, she had such a soft spot for my younger brother Bryan.

Bryan was one of those children who tortured himself endlessly. There he was standing in his pyjamas pining up at the kitchen press. Behind the press door was an unopened box of Quality Street. Aunt Sissy couldn't bear to watch his wanton eyes any longer and so she reached up and opened the press.

She carefully unravelled the sellotape from the purple tin and took out a shiny sweet– Toffee medallion– and gave it to Bryan before re-taping the tin again. When my mother came home from her ceili with the neighbours, Aunt Sissy confessed what she had done.

“Oh, Rose, I couldn't bear to see the wee pet begging, I just had to give him a sweet,” Aunt Sissy said compassionately and in her own nervous way. My brother had mastered the art of getting exactly what he wanted just by being silent and looking pale.

When it was time to go to bed, my brothers would file into their room while my sister and I retired across the hallway. Back and forth we'd tease each other until one by one, we'd fall fast asleep.

I was always the last to fall asleep. I needed to stay awake to ask Santa if I could go and work with him in the North Pole when I got older. I never did get to ask him.