Final+Script

Radio Edit: Final Script

Christmas was always an exciting time for me. I used to love waking up really early and rummaging through my Christmas stocking and pulling out the best treats and devouring them one by one. And without fail I would watch those terrible Christmas cartoons that they play year after year. I think I’ve seen about 20 versions of ‘A Christmas Carol.’ But nothing beat the feeling of knowing that it was Christmas and it was only going to get better!

My mum struggled to make Christmas a success. Our family wasn’t rich; we couldn’t afford to shower each other with expensive gifts. But mum always managed to make Christmas the best time of year! She would buy us lots of little presents. Then she would hide our presents and create a personalised Christmas hunt for my brother and me. Our hunt was the best thing about Christmas. We would look forward to it all year.

Originally mum started the hunt to extend our Christmas mornings, but it soon became a family tradition, and still happens to this day. They started when I was 4. I got simple hints like a picture and some short directional words, like garden and a picture of the pear tree. I didn’t know it, but they were educational. As we got older, our hunts got more and more complicated. I remember the proud feeling I would have when I’d solved the puzzle and found my present.

I remember one year mum wrote my whole hunt in Japanese. She used a translator on the net. I knew some Japanese, because I had been studying it for a few years, but the hunt was far too complex and even with the help of a Japanese dictionary I struggled. In the end, mum had to guide me through the whole thing, but because mum couldn’t read or speak any Japanese, she had to continually refer to her answers. I don’t think I solved a single clue on my own. All in all it was a mess, but we had so much fun doing it!

Our Christmas hunts were not only a fun tradition, but they brought the family together and made the joy of Christmas last all day! Still to this day, Christmas is my favourite time of year.

Time: 1:48

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