My childhood memories are of baking and cooking, my mom's aunt used to come to our house for Christmas and she was a cook for one of the big houses in Dublin and she would make the most fantastic food for Christmas and everytime I take out her recipies coming up to and at Christmas it transports me back to my childhood. I recently had some friends over and I cooked for them using her recipies and they were all very impressed it was sooooo cooool - so thanks Aunt Nell RIP

My other memories are of my dad on Christmas morning when we would drag him out of bed and get him to go down and check to see if Santa had come and he would sneak down and purposely (sp) step on the creaky step just to give us a fright and then he would stop for a second and then continue down the rest of the way and then call us down to see a half eaten mince pie and two gulps gone out of a glass of guiness it was coold.

One tradition that still lives on though is at Christmas on Christmas morning we all go the my gran's house (my mom's mom) and there she has all her children and their husbands and wives and all of us grandchildren and santa comes to her for everybody (we do chris kindle) and she lines all of her grandchildren including me at the grand old age of 33 on her stairs and we have to sing christmas carols for her and the rest of the family it is wonderful but now becoming at tight squeeze with 36 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. but what a tradition it is wonderful.