Oooh Acey, that Irish blessing looks like it could form a cross stitch pattern (if I only had the time!).
And I love Alanmakaree's Grafton street lights - I'd forgotten those lanterns. I don't remember when the street was pedestrianized (I may have been tiny or it may have been before I was born) but my parents talk about it occasionally. (DPs both grew up in Dublin, but moved away after Uni/getting married, and now I am back here again!!).
Flapjacks, sorry for your loss. I lost a DGAunt on Christmas Day a few years ago, but in her case, it was a blessing anyway as she was very elderly, but she also seemed to have a special connection and it really seemed fitting to happen on Christmas morning (she used to put on her shoes every Sunday, while caring for her older DSis for a number of years, even if it was raining, for 2 DNieces to collect her to walk Dun Laoghaire pier - the DNieces would often suggest going straight to their house for the after-walk coffee, but DGA always said "pier first", and it ALWAYS stopped raining for their walk - she was a nun with a very strong vocation 
).
Wheelie, we have one of those advent calendars that my Mum bought the panel in the USA and sewed it together for DD's first Christmas, it still comes out annually now!
I've no pictures, but in my mind, I can see the tree covered in lametta (icicles), the birds made from old Kelloggs corn flakes boxes in school (with the foil coming off them), a snowman made of cotton wool around a plastic bottle, and the baubles of the 70/80s which were coloured thread wrapped around and around the ball with a thin line of gold braid around the "equator", and all the coloured fairy lights with little lanterns on them that you would have to check each bulb to find the dead one to replace.