A Familiar Friendly Face

Backblip - Sunday 20th December 2015


This is Mr Snowman, and he's a very familiar face to our family.  I remember seeing him for sale in the Christmas window of our local bakery in Rayleigh High Street, where I grew up in the 1960's.  I badgered Mum and Dad for ages until they bought him.  He's hollow, just over a foot tall, and he came filled with snowballs, each with a raffle ticket stuck onto it and containing a little novelty gift stuffed into its middle.  So Mr Snowman was actually a kind of tombola.  The corresponding raffle tickets were handed out to everyone on Christmas Day and we all got a snowball from out of Mr Snowman.  We carried on this tradition (with new "prizes" of course) every year until I, my nieces and my nephew grew too old for it - but dear Mr Snowman still comes out to join us each Christmas, our only original decoration to survive for so long.