Happy Christmas 2006
November 30, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Check out our lovely snowy scene on the home page…doesn’t it make you feel all festive? Break out the mince pies, I smell mulled wine, now where’s me ice skates?…
I had a particularly enjoyable Dublin Christmas moment the other day. I had to dash out to the GPO to get something. It was busy at the counter I needed, and the queue was a long one. Normally this would involve a bit of stressful waiting around, but on Wednesday it was a wonderful moment.
The GPO was celebrating putting up their Christmas decorations, and they had 2 ould lads playing music – one on piano, one on the fiddle. They were positioned up there beside the place where the crib used to be – now they are ecumenical and have moving reindeer – their brief was to play some carols, but they had a bit of a fan club going on, and let’s just say that the 2 guys were rising to the occasion!
The fan club comprised 3 ladies, all in their 70′s if they were a day! One was tall, slim, and had white hair recently done up in a ‘set’ (if you don’t know what that is, you may want to google it – historical hair styles), one was shorter, plumper, with straight grey ‘no-nonsense’ hair style. And the third, was a fashionable grey haired lady. All looked quintessentially Irish, Dublin maybe, certainly women who’ve lived to see great changes in this city of ours.
What charmed me was that they were acting like young ones! They were all coquettishly singing along to the carols, and blushing when the guy on the fiddle drew attention to them! While I stood silently waiting for counter 20, the music changed to an Irish jig and before I knew it, tall one and small one were Irish dancing in the GPO! They knew the moves alright and were certainly light on their feet. When the jig finished up, all the on-lookers gave them a big cheer. All of us Asian mommies with kids in buggys, African workers posting stuff home in time for Christmas, Irish women queueing for visas, ….Dubliners all of us, new and old.
I came away with a strong sense of warmth. I really hope that when my generation becomes the older generation . . that we have time and inclination to dance around the GPO, that we take pride in giving directions to people who look lost on our streets, that we interrupt foreigners on the bus to help them get off at the right stop . . and wave at them as they walk away. I love the fact that my home town has become internationalised. My wish is that we don’t lose what makes us uniquely what we are – warmth, friendliness, a certain degree of nosiness, and a people with the time to down tools and do a jig!!
I just hope we haven’t become too cool for school!
What do you think?
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