My Christmas dress

My mother made all our clothes when we were children, right down to our knickers, and when we went to boarding school, not only did she make our school dresses, but also our pyjamas and dressing gowns.  My father, not to be outdone, bought a huge roll of orange and white striped towelling material, and proceeded to run up numerous swimming towels for us.  He then got it into his head that he could also make us face clothes.  These were the bane of our existence!  I hated them with a passion, as did my sisters. 

When each term ended and before the holidays began, we would conveniently lose them, in the hope that he would buy us regular sized ones, like everyone else had.  No such luck!  He would just sit down at the sewing machine again, and make us a whole lot more. 

There was a character in the annuals called Desparate Dan.  Everything he owned was of gigantic proportions, so eventually we dubbed these giant monstrosities that my father kept churning out "Disparate Dan" face clothes. 

Once a year we were allowed to choose a Christmas dress.  These were bought from a store by the name of Harding and Parker in a town about forty five kilometres from our farm.  There was a very nice assistant there who wore a lot of makeup, and had a hairstyle which consisted of small kiss curls, which marched across her forehead like miniature tin soldiers.  It didn't matter which dress you put on, the response was always the same  "You look so sweet".

Although we were allowed to choose one bought dress each year, there were always monetary constraints attached, which I found out quite early in life.  Having made my choice one particular December, and no sooner had "you look so sweet" left the change room, than my mother sort of pecked me on top of my head with her bunched up fingers and said "It's too expensive.  We can't afford it.  You'll take the striped one, besides, it makes you look much fatter".

To the great surprise of the kiss curled assistant, by the time she reentered the cubicle, I had done a complete turnabout, nodding in the direction of the striped dress, which I didn't like at all.

It was with a heavy heart that we made our way home that day.  The pretty, frilly, chiffon dress still hanging in the showroom, waiting to be owned by some lucky little girl who would look "so very sweet" in it.