Comments on: On Christmas Day https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Fri, 26 Dec 2025 16:40:45 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Russell A Metz https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1888710 Fri, 26 Dec 2025 16:40:45 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1888710 Made my day. Thanks.

]]> By: Jane https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1888663 Fri, 26 Dec 2025 15:41:57 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1888663 This article is wonderful, very skilful, very moving.
The GA has conveyed so much of entirely personal memory as well as a window into the varied cruelties, unkindnesses, of the British class system, and the bullying around sexuality.
The pictures of an English winter of those days is so atmospheric.

Thank you for so many extraordinarily vivid, informative portraits all through the year.

May 2026 be a kind year to you GA.

]]> By: Jeremy Brown https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1888117 Fri, 26 Dec 2025 02:17:34 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1888117 Thank you for sharing your Christmas memories. So beautifully written, that one almost feels part of your family.

]]> By: Lynne Perrella https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1887856 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 20:14:07 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1887856 I just heard something on NPR, by a musicologist, discussing how many well-loved holiday
carols are about “yearning”. As I listened further, I understood. We yearn for the picture-perfect holiday, the ideal snowfall, the gathering of people who are kindred, etc. We have idealized the holidays, perhaps beyond all reckoning. We yearn. But, GA, your yearly story reminds us of the fragility of humans, and how the holiday season seems to magnify that. Thanks for sharing the humanity of your story — and thank you for your daily insights. And creating a community of readers.

Onward and upward.

]]> By: Deborah https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1887795 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 18:55:17 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1887795 Thank you so much GA not only for today’s touching and thought provoking family tale but for the daily posts I have become used to reading over several years now. I never tire of them and have learned so much. You have given me a great deal to think about, educated me on many varied strands of London life and history and, most importantly, given me cause to reflect and understand much about people, community and ultimately humanity. I look forward to another year. Thank you and best wishes for the New Year.

]]> By: achim https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1887647 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 15:10:03 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1887647 *** A PEACEFUL CHRISTMAS! ***
*** EINE FRIEDLICHE WEIHNACHTSZEIT! ***
*** UN NOËL PAISIBLE! ***

Thanks for all the stories from London’s East End so far — I’m looking forward to the next ones in the new year!

Love & Peace
ACHIM

]]> By: Yvonne https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1887553 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 13:20:07 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1887553 Merry Christmas and an even merrier 2026! Thank you for all the super newsletters throughout the year … I look forward to reading them each day.
Best regards. Yvonne

]]> By: Elizabeth Gilbey https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1887484 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 11:46:07 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1887484 This is a story that is so familiar, in tone and content, to my own only child upbringing, and my own dysfunctional family so like your own. Except deeply working class, and with a sociopathic, narcissistic mother.
I think you would find watching the film All Of Us Strangers as cathartic as everyone who has seen it. Extraordinary and life changing, life enhancing.
Have a very peaceful and restful Christmas, GA: there are many people who find Christmas a very melancholic experience, and age and time make no difference to that. God bless.

]]> By: mary woodward https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1887407 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 09:57:00 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1887407 fascinating..poor things..they all had a tough time…maybe especially your dad…..understand his fear of black ice!

]]> By: Andy https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/12/25/on-christmas-day-iiiii/#comment-1887375 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 09:09:14 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=205731#comment-1887375 A very well written piece with tinges of sadness and loneliness .
Well done GA .

Andy

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