The cows didn't know it was a special day and we all need milk for our Cornflakes.

Christmas at our house was always a time of fond memories, sunburnt noses, bellies full of my mother's home cooked pudding filled with threepences and sixpences, Christmas cake with lashings of brandy, home made ginger beer that exploded in the bottles as you gingerly sneaked past them in the laundry on your way to the outside dunny, watermelons the size of mini torpedoes, and Percy's lady finger bananas which we hung up under the house to ripen.

It also included the guilt associated with not going to church on Christmas Day, partly due to the fact that Jean O'Connor and Mr and Mrs Kevin Cassin would arrive very early and start the day off with a glass or three of sweet sherry and even a nip of Penfolds port.

So I guess you could say, at least, we had communion without the bread.

There was normally a Christmas king tide down at the surfing beach and when it was high it seemed like even the ocean was doing everything to excess. My memories extend to waves washing right up to the steps of the surf clubhouse, wiping out beach towels, taking thongs out to sea and surprised beach-goers escaping to higher ground.

And then back in Pilot St and surrounds there were the sounds of bells being rung, coming from shiny new pushbikes. This was quite often accompanied by the anguish of a crying child as they lost control of Santa's present down the steep slopes of Pilot, Pacific and even Bellinger St.

Back in the house with its adornments of a big picture of Santa on the front door and a plastic blow-up version in the lounge, crepe paper streamers twirled in rows from one side of the back verandah to the other, a real life Christmas tree stood forlornly proud in its resting place of an old rusty tin filled with sand and bricks to keep it upright. And crepe paper streamers were wrapped around the tree to celebrate not only its life but to add Christmas joy to the setting.

The tree was once a real living small she-oak or the branch of a larger she-oak chopped down across the road, halfway down the bush track to Beilbys Beach. These trees, unlike most things that have died, finish life giving off a beautiful smell of Christmas.

It's far removed from today's extravaganza of all things Made in China, and the small set of Christmas lights wrapped around the tree which was manufactured in Japan.

By mid-morning the slow combustion oven was well and truly stoked up with firewood and ready for the task of cooking the Christmas dinner. Imagine being the bloke who loads the coal into the furnace of a steam train! Not a bad job on a cold morning in the middle of winter but just think what it was like in the middle of a December day with the temperature at 36 degrees.

Well that's what it was like in the kitchen at Pilot St. In a room not much bigger than a three man tent was where my mother Norma Eliza and Aunty Ethel would struggle to cook, plate and serve a three course Christmas baked dinner with all the trimmings.

Normally the ladies cooked a nice piece of roast meat and chicken. But one year we had a treat.

About six weeks before Christmas my father arrived home late one afternoon after a few beers at the Golden Sands Hotel. He said to mum, "I've got you a turkey for Christmas, it's a 20-pounder".

Mum went to the freezer, wondering how on earth he could have fitted it in. "Neville, where is the turkey?"

"Go and have a look over in the chook pen," he replied.

And guess what?

Here was a whopping great gobbler parading around the chook house scaring the daylights out of the white leghorns and the Rhode Island reds.

"Neville, how on earth are we going to present that on the table on Christmas Day?"

When the day arrived and we had to chop its head off before plucking it after it faced Nifty's blunt axe it escaped our grasp and took off around the backyard minus its head!

Needless to say that was the last time we had a real live turkey.

The ladies also ensured there were trimmings for the feast - Christmas or plum pudding as mum called it, and boiled Christmas fruit cake.

The story of their creation is one of love and devotion as well.

In early December mum would fire up the copper in the laundry. The copper was a full copper metal large wash bowl. Prior to electric washing machines, coppers were used to heat water that would enable clothes to be washed thoroughly. Throw in a little bag of bluo and the clothes came out dazzling white.

You simply lit a fire under the copper, heated the water and the smoke escaped up the chimney.

The recipes for the pudding and boiled Christmas fruit cake were handed down to mum from her mother.

On February 14, 1966, we changed over from pounds, shillings and pence to decimal currency. Many people would still remember the jingle on our black and white tv sets or on radio.

Before that time most Christmas puddings had coins in them. Generally threepences and sixpences were randomly placed into the pudding mix. These coins were deemed safe because they had a high percentage of silver in them.

The pudding mix was then placed in a cotton bag and cooked in the boiling water of the copper.

When cooked, the pudding was hung up to dry and mature before being served up on Christmas Day with custard, cream and ice cream.

The Christmas fruit cake was always accompanied by a glass of home made ginger beer from a bottle which hadn't managed to explode!

The secret of the pudding was to find a threepence in it. They were more treasured than the sixpence. Unfortunately, coins in puddings were the cause of a chipped tooth on occasion.

Before lunch was served we always said grace - my father Neville Clyde, who sat at the head of the table surrounded by a large family gathering, always managed to nominate me to say grace.

After a quick silent rehearsal and being keen to get stuck into a big roast meal I mumbled " for what we are about to receive may The Lord make us truly thankful".

Saying grace was like the starting gun for the 100m Olympic final. No sooner had I finished and you could see the knives and forks attacking the roast meat with glee.

All except for Uncle Frank who would always thank the ladies for preparing a fine meal before he too attacked his hot roast offering with possibly more ferocity than any of the other dinner guests.

After the main course and before the sweets were served, my cousin young Ian (Dick) O'Connor who was a budding race caller would have a phantom call of the Christmas Cup.

The participants were not racehorses but family members, friends and local identities.

The track was the old Bowra racecourse and quite often the locals had a leg up when negotiating the twists, turns and undulations of the course.

Some of the runners included Bootlace, Dick Crossingham, Old George Fuller, Uncle Paddy with the terrible eyesight, his brother Claude who was a deaf as a post, Percy Hall, Nifty, Aunty Norma, Frank Fuller who was quite fleet of foot ... even Denise, who was Dick's sister, had a gallop one year. Then there was Harley, Graham, Ethel, Laurie, sometimes Brian, and a cast of other infamous Bowra identities.

There was always a fall or some mishap and quite often it was a blanket finish. I think Aunty Norma won in a photo finish one year, just pipping Percy Hall at the post!

And then the Christmas Pudding was served.

Who had the few threepences? I can still remember the year my cousin Denise chopped into a threepence in her pudding. Talk about over the moon with joy.

By this time Brian and Ruth Grace and family had arrived. I think everyone helped out with the washing up, no dishwashers then!

The game of cricket in the backyard normally resumed but didn't last long. Everyone was too bloated with baked spuds, ginger beer and Christmas pudding and couldn't be bothered chasing the ball.

So most of us were looking for a bed to have a lie down. Except for the Grace family who had to get back to the farm just out of Bowraville to do the milking.

So as Christmas Day started to wind down, while the cows up at Graces Rd were mooing, and Nifty and Uncle Frank were snoring their heads off out on the verandah with a cooling nor easter was blowing off the ocean, my mother was sitting in front of a fan trying to cool down and the rest of us were checking out our Christmas presents.

Merry Christmas.

Drumroll, Macksville's champions revealed

Christmas miracle as game on at Nambucca