I’ve never forgotten Dad’s words that day. They are more vivid in my memory than any other words ever spoken to me. Little did he know how close he was to the truth…

My 4th Christmas

…‘Mum, Dad!’

     I was pounding down the stairs so fast my tiny feet barely stroked the hairs on the carpet. Christmas Day! And my birthday! Nothing could better the ecstasy I felt on this day of the year. Excitement was bubbling up all over my body and I didn’t so much go through the door of the living room as blast through it.

     There was Mum and Dad, arm in arm, lit up by the blazing fireplace and the twinkling colours of the Christmas tree. And, as I peered down, huddled by their feet was the biggest, brownest dog I had ever seen. As I entered the dog sprang to his feet and bounded over to me, coating me in any number of loveable licks as is possible in a couple of seconds.

     ‘Merry Christmas,’ Mum chimed. ‘And happy birthday!’ I looked up into their smiling faces with the most enormous feeling of delight.

     ‘He is for you Jimmy,’ Dad said. ‘What are you going to call him? Call him anything you like.’

     I glanced down at the dog’s sleek coat of marvellous shades of black and brown and announced proudly, ‘Smokey!’

     ‘Smokey it is then. And while…’

     But Dad was cut off mid-sentence as Smokey took a step backwards and from standing on his two hind legs proceeded to somersault 360 degrees and land back on his hind legs.

     Our eyes widened in amazement and, as we were still trying to comprehend what we had just seen, Dad exclaimed,

     ‘Hang on a minute! Surely that’s not physically possible…’

And that is that. The story of how I came to realise that my dog Smokey will be with me always. And as I sit here as an old man in this armchair, reminiscing of my childhood, I look lovingly across at Smokey’s grey, shaggy body asleep by the fire and feel childish wonder come teeming back within me. So you see, for me anyway, my dog really was for life, not just for Christmas.