Christmas

Christmas has always been a very special time in my life and my family’s life. It holds wonderful memories for me both as a child and as an adult. As a child we would help dad string lights on the big fir tree in our front yard, almost always with snow on the ground and snowflakes gently falling to set the stage for the big day; to me it was magical! Then there was getting the Christmas tree and bringing it home to decorate. The lighted bubble candles are what I remember most and the sweet smell of pine waffling throughout the house. Then there was mom’s baking and all the Christmas treats to anticipate eating. Mom was such a great pastry cook and baker. The warmth of the oven baking these goodies and their smell drifted throughout our home filling us with joy and not a worry in the world. Our aunts and uncles would send big cardboard boxes filled with gifts to the local post office at the railway station for every member of the family, eight of us. Dad would drive to the railway station and pick up our packages and we’d gleefully unwrap the boxes at home to place the gifts with our names under the tree. I might add a mountain of gifts, we were so spoiled! Dad always acted as Santa Claus and called out our names to hand us our gifts, one at a time. Mom would make sure we kept any wrapping that we could reuse and the rest went into large garbage bags to keep the living room neat and tidy. Christmas dinner always seemed to have an extra new addition to our family, usually a friend of mom and dad’s. Then to top off the Christmas feast dad would traditionally light the brandy on the plum pudding dessert and we’d all clap our hands in excitement of this special once a year treat. 

I remember being about five years old and staring out our bedroom window into the starry winter night sky one snowy Christmas Eve hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa and his reindeer. Dad and mom told me that they found me curled up on the floor beneath the window sound asleep. They always waited for all of us to fall asleep before they filled our stockings at the end of our beds. We’d wake up early Christmas morning and open our stockings, cheerfully sharing whatever we discovered with each other. There were always tangerines (a treat in those days), a candied apple, cashews and some small gifts we hadn’t expected. Mom had knack for putting something in the stocking she knew you’d like. 

I slept in the lower bunk and my youngest brother (born the same day as myself three years apart) slept in the top bunk. I use to love putting my feet on his mattress and bouncing him up in the air. Wayne Morrison, I love you. You died way too soon as a young man no fault of your own in a national class action medical malpractice suit. He was such a good guy and as a child he endured incredible hardship living almost constantly in Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. He was on the front page of the Montreal Star along with four other kids under the watch of Dr. Mackenzie, Canada’s top nephrologist back then. He ran like the wind and I was proud of him the day he married Wendy (the love of his life) with all his family present and his best friends from home at his wedding in Toronto. That was a very special event we weren’t sure we would ever be witness to, and for mom and dad, a gift.   

As an adult my memories are filled with love and more recently some sadness. I remember a white Christmas at home in Quebec and skiing at Mont. St. Anne between Christmas and New Year’s while staying at the Hotel Frontenac in Quebec City and eating a holiday meal at Aux Anciens Canadiens. Magical! That same Christmas I went to my first and only french catholic Christmas Eve service at the historic village church (a provincial historic site decorated by Ozias Leduc) where I grew up. Walking the three kilometre trip back home under the night sky in the crisp, cold, frosty air of winter in Quebec was something special I’ll never forget. It was my first Christmas home after having moved to the West Coast. Everyone was home for Christmas as a surprise for mom and dad, God Bless You All.   

We tried hard to make Christmas special for our kids on the West Coast and I hope that mostly we accomplished our Christmas mission. I remember videoing the kids at the top of the stairs and holding them back like thoroughbreds at the starting gate so I could film them as they came down the staircase with its long wreath and red ribbons trailing down the bannister to the front foyer and then around the corner to the living room. Fireplace on, antique Quebec spindle candles on the mantel all aglow, and another wreath shadowing the mantle. Like my dad I played Santa calling out the kids names and watched their excited faces as they opened their lovingly wrapped gifts. Christmas dinner often had one of my former wife’s family members from the North Shore of Vancouver and on one occasion my mother from Kitchener-Waterloo, that Christmas was extra special for me and I hope my children. And Taylor Rae, I have a photograph I took of you on Christmas Eve having fallen asleep at the top of the stairs curled up in your nighty. Gently I picked you up and wrapped you in one of your grandma’s award winning hand sewn quilts and lowered you down into your antique pine ship bed. The photo is in one of your albums that I made for you kids and my hope is that they bring back joyous memories that will last a lifetime. Just like your dad all those years before you, you too were waiting for Santa and Rudolph. Now that my adult children are living in Vancouver with their own lives, siblings in Eastern Canada and Australia,  and I’m here in Alberta, Christmas is not quite the same for us all. Christmas is about family and as they say, distance makes the heart grow fonder. 

Love you all so very much and a Merry Christmas!