I had great fun a few weeks back when I was somehow roped in by the housemate to joining a group of friends providing some Christmas entertainment at her WI meeting - an evening which somehow went well, although I suspect the mulled wine and mince pies lent it a glow it really didn’t deserve.

Amongst the traditional Christmas songs and carols we - I’d like to say performed but that might too strong a word for it - some extracts from the Dylan Thomas classic A Child’s Christmas in Wales in which he writes of his vivid memories of happy Christmases past.

Often laced with unexpected drama, he recalls festive seasons with long walks in the snow, chasing cats, throwing snowballs at postmen and frightening timid, spinster aunts with balloons.

“That brought back so many happy memories of my childhood almost 90 years ago,” said one WI stalwart as we loaded the car at the end of the evening.

“Mine too, I replied as I replied that while almost three decades separated us in age, our memories were almost identical.

When I look back a Christmases past I see early morning walks in the rain to test out new bikes, tables groaning with food, which were cleared from lunch - always in time to see The Queen - only to be relaid for a supper of cold meat, fresh bread and endless pickles barely before the last roast potato had been digested.

There were tins of Quality Street the size of a small baby, sweet sherries - for the ladies - and homemade beer for the men who were always lucky to see Boxing Day.

There was always singing around the piano with the Lost Chord and Excelsior ringing out from the choir of grandparents, uncles and aunties and party ‘turns' eagerly requested by we children - which invariably saw the men in the family dressing up as women - my late father’s ‘Can’t Blow Candle Out’ was a firm favourite, while every year my grandfather rolled up his trousers and donned a kilt - or at least one of my auntie’s plaid skirts - to sing “I Belong to Glasgow.

Then came bedtime when we so often slept on cushions in the living room as our beds were occupied by the hoards of family who came on Christmas Eve and didn’t leave until the day after Boxing Day, despite only living in Nantyglo!

They were wonderful times seen only in shadow now when those who remain meet up over Christmas and share treasured memories. Our Christmases now are less raucous. It’s easier to find a seat and everyone has a bed on Christmas night but I’d still give anything to see my grandmother and her sisters belting out Oh Come All Ye Faithful, my Auntie Mim insisting on the last stir of the gravy, my grandfather sneaking outside for a crafty fag and my Dad seeking refuge in the stable because he couldn’t find a seat ‘in his own bloody house’.

I hope all your Christmas memories are as sweet and that like us you carry on making new ones because at the end of the day I don’t remember any of the presents under the tree when I was a child….only the people around it and the love they felt for each other.

A very Merry Christmas to you all.