A Christmas wish for my parents
I grew up experiencing Christmas in many places in sa国际传媒. Christmas was a time of white landscapes and hours spent skating on rinks my father crafted on frozen ponds or in our backyard. Each house turned into a wonderland in and out.
Though I remember the wreaths on the door, boughs of fir or holly draped across the mantel, and trees of pine, fir or balsam, these are not my first or most vivid memories of Christmas.
It鈥檚 the smells and sights of fresh-baked bread, shortbread cookies and other Christmas treats being lovingly made by my mother. And, it鈥檚 the memory of the weeks and days leading up to Christmas Day, seeing my mother decorate the home with care, placing wreaths, garlands and other Christmas items she made throughout the house, that brings a smile to my face.
So last season, I made a Christmas wish to return home to visit my father and mother and share these memories with them. I returned home, especially for my mother, to give thanks for all she had done and to cherish the last Christmas before her memory faded. Now we remember for her.
Drew Van Brunt
Victoria
A visit to Victoria convinced me to stay
Christmas 1973 was my first in sa国际传媒. I had come to Edmonton that fall as a graduate student from England. I knew no one.
After the green hills of home, I was taken aback by the flat vastness of Alberta. I was a late arrival due to a delayed visa, and a week later, the snow and cold started. It was a record amount of snow that winter, made worse by a long transit strike. I was bitterly homesick.
Although I had tried to hide it, my parents guessed from my letters how miserable I was. They urged me to give up my studies and come home. The idea was achingly appealing as Christmas grew closer.
Just when I was on the point of leaving for good, a letter from Margaret, a Canadian friend I had known as an undergraduate in Scotland, arrived in the mail. She wrote that she was flying home to Victoria to spend Christmas with her family. Would I like to join her? You bet I would! Margaret had thrown me a lifeline, so I decided to drop out after the holidays were over.
Although I hadn鈥檛 met Margaret鈥檚 mother and sisters before, they greeted me with such warmth that I soon felt part of the family. In the 10 days I was there, they included me in all kinds of activities, including a lavish Christmas dinner at The Empress Hotel 鈥� very memorable after a semester in a university dorm!
We took many walks in the warm and sunny weather along the beach in Oak Bay. This was a very different sa国际传媒 from what I had experienced up until then.
Margaret鈥檚 brother also came home for a few days. It turned out that we were both avid Beatles fans and he would play his Beatles music at top volume. No one minded. For a lonely girl from the north of England, spending her first Christmas away from her large, noisy family, that music and his cheerful face etched a memory never to be forgotten.
That Christmas with Margaret and her family changed the course of my life. I returned to the frigid cold of a 40-below Edmonton, and knew that I would see my studies through.
That was 47 years ago, and I retired to beautiful Vancouver Island last year after a fulfilling career working across this country from coast to coast. And at Christmas, I think of Margaret and her family, and the kindness they showed to me, when I was 5,000 miles from home.
Madeleine Lefebvre
Sidney
Behind the scenes at Santa鈥檚 Kingdom
Before The Hudson, before the Victoria Public Market, there was the Hudson鈥檚 Bay department store on the corner of Douglas and Fisgard. Yet to be challenged by boutiques, big-box stores and online retailers, the store was firmly and unpretentiously offering goods to the middle and working classes in the early 1970s.
That attitude extended to its basement and its rather dingy, low-ceilinged cafeteria. Yet every December, the cafeteria was somewhat transformed into a makeshift Santa鈥檚 Kingdom where harried parents, for less than $2 a head, could bring their children for a full breakfast, entertainment and a visit from Santa. And teenagers like myself could snag seasonal work as one of Santa鈥檚 鈥渉elpers.鈥�
Our costume budget was minimal. We were provided red tights so lacking in elasticity that the crotch hovered dangerously close to the hems of our burlap tunics. Our headwear was more 鈥淩obin Hood鈥� than elfin and I can鈥檛 recall our footwear.
For several December Saturday mornings, I and my fellow helpers entered the store through the staff entrance in the dark, as the first of two breakfast sittings was around 7:30 a.m.
Our job included greeting still comatose parents and their already jacked-up children in the lineup to the cafeteria 鈥� offering to help them with their trays, asking their breakfast preferences (most sleepy-eyed parents said 鈥渏ust coffee鈥�) and leading them to their tables.
Greeting them were members of a local theatre troupe dressed as storybook characters (I remember one actor, before lowering his giant teddy-bear head, using particularly salty language that my inexperienced ears didn鈥檛 expect from a children鈥檚 entertainer).
Prior to dressing in his red velvet costume and beard, the man playing Santa looked like someone out on day parole, with five-o鈥檆lock shadow and a close-cropped head 鈥� another illusion shattered.
We helpers circulated during the first sitting, handing out cookies and small toys while Santa and the actors danced and sang in the aisles. Then the first crowd headed out and the helpers had less than a half hour to bus all the tables and reset them for the second sitting.
I made trip after trip into the kitchen to scrape mostly uneaten breakfasts into a big bin. Smoking was allowed in restaurants then, so cigarette butts floated in semi-drained cups of coffee or were ground out in mounds of scrambled eggs.
At 9:30 a.m., we did it all over again with slightly more animated parents. After they left, Santa pulled off his beard and had a smoke and we helpers repeated our frantic cleanup, skidding into the kitchen on a floor slick with whatever missed the big bin.
Overseeing us was a beefy woman, her hair severely netted, who growled at us to hurry up and get the place ready for the lunch crowd. Our reward, besides our minimum-wage salary, was to pick anything we wanted out of the dessert display case for a treat. I looked at the cubed jello with whipped cream, slices of cake and puddings all sitting in dishes wedged into a bed of ice cubes and couldn鈥檛 stomach anything.
Alas, the behind-the-scenes realism that had seeped into the store鈥檚 land of make believe had killed my appetite!
Patricia Pitts
Victoria
A box of gravel and then a joyful song
I recall my favourite Christmas as a young girl, perhaps 10 years of age , growing up on Langford Lake.
There were six children in our family and my father worked very hard to try and provide for us.
As Christmas approached, the tree was decorated, the angel was placed atop and it was magical. Traditionally, we attended midnight mass on Christmas Eve (perhaps our parents hoped that as well as receiving the spiritual message, we would sleep in on Christmas morning. We always failed to accommodate them!).
After midnight mass, we were allowed to open one gift before we went to bed.
A few days before Christmas, the gifts were placed under the tree and we would start feverishly exploring the parcels 鈥� who were they labelled for? How did they feel and what might the contents be?
This particular Christmas, a small rectangular box (about the size of a box of Kraft Dinner) had a gift tag with my name on it. I was in a dilemma.
It was very heavy relative to its size and the contents seemed to shift as I examined it.
Curiosity nagged at me for days until I was finally able to open it.
I was very confused 鈥� a box of gravel? I gave my parents a questioning glance.
Was this akin to getting a lump of coal? They just quietly smiled at me.
Gravel? Wait a minute 鈥� 鈥渂ird鈥� gravel? I glanced at them again.
They were clearly enjoying this moment. Then mom smiled and said: 鈥淥h, your bird is next door at Aunt Nell鈥檚.鈥�
They had bought me a magnificent apricot-coloured roller canary. She was not only beautiful to behold but entertained us often with joyful song as well.
Oddly enough , my sweet canary especially loved the hum of the vacuum cleaner and you could barely hear the motor over her uplifting song. To this day, birds bring me tremendous joy, but none measure up to my beautiful canary and I shall never forget her or that Christmas.
Michele Atchison
Sooke
A special gift for twins without presents
Many years ago, we had an opportunity to be guests at Christmas time aboard an ocean liner that would be stopping at the remote island of St. Helena, where Napoleon was exiled and died.
The ship, Marco Polo, was formerly a Soviet vessel by the name of Aleksandr Pushkin, built in 1965.
My husband, Henri van Bentum, was guest artist and lecturer for the voyage, which began in Cape Town, South Africa and ended in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His art classes were focused on creative exploration and colour. I was his assistant.
Aboard ship, news travels fast.
Not long after lifting anchor in Cape Town, we heard about the plight of a French couple with young daughters, twins.
The couple had saved for years to take this trip, but all their luggage had gone astray between Paris and Cape Town. Included in the lost luggage were the little girls鈥� Christmas presents.
Amongst our art class students were two elderly sisters from Devon, England 鈥� Dolly and Dorothy. They were twins.
Dolly and Dorothy had taken an interest in the plight of the French family, being Francophiles themselves who used to live in France, and because the little girls were also twins.
Henri suggested to the two ladies that they could create two dolls 鈥� twins 鈥� as a surprise Christmas present for the little French girls.
They loved the idea and immediately set to work designing the dolls.
Meanwhile, the parents of the young twins had been given some clothing by fellow passengers or had bought a few basic items in the ship鈥檚 tiny boutique.
Housekeeping crew chipped in and sewed a couple of dresses that fitted the little girls perfectly.
The ship鈥檚 engineer was a slightly portly fellow and on Christmas Day he dressed up as Santa, looking like the real thing. Knowing of their earlier predicament, he gave the little girls a special box of chocolates, with a hearty 鈥淗o Ho Ho.鈥�
Meanwhile, the dolls created by my two art students turned out beautifully. Made of cardboard, they were carefully painted and dressed with makeshift materials and fabrics found aboard ship.
And so these custom-made dolls were a one-of-a-kind gift.
On Christmas Day in our art class, the English twins presented the twin dolls to the little twin French girls. They were thrilled, and all became good friends.
We saw them together often for the rest of the voyage, chatting in French and having a great time.
It was a happy Christmas in many ways, including our visit to the remote island of St. Helena. Because of its far-off location in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, there is a tremendous swell that builds up around the island, making it difficult for ships to visit.
There is no pier, so passengers need to go ashore by tender. With a strong swell, landing the tenders ashore can be dangerous.
But luck was with us. Only the week before, the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 had been unable to land passengers ashore, so we were pleased the swell was not so strong the day of our visit, and we were able to visit the historic place where Napoleon was exiled.
It was a memorable Christmas, with lots of happy, smiling faces 鈥� especially the French twins, their parents and the English twins from Devon.
Natasha van Bentum
Victoria
Christmas cheer lasted into March
Christmas traditions and decorating were unconventional at our house.
A large live tree was adorned with a large red Sputnik star at the top. Dried carved apple heads (some scary looking) were mixed in with glass ornaments, but at the end of each branch was tied a blown-up balloon.
After a few days, as the air escaped, these decorations did not look very nice. Red and white streamers galore were strung along the ceiling, along with large red paper bells and mistletoe.
These decorations always stayed up until March 27, my father Paul鈥檚 birthday.
Adelle Hatch
Victoria
A lesson of kindness and sharing
This is one of my fond memories of Christmas Eve as a child, in the snow-covered mountains of British Columbia.
Our family had moved from New Brunswick to a gold-mining town, high in the mountains, in 1948.
Bralorne Mines was situated in the Bridge River Valley. By Christmas Eve, it would probably be snowing. We always had so much snow at that time of year.
Mother had the wood-burning cook stove stoked, along with the wood-burning furnace, to keep us warm.
She made a fresh plate of fudge, one of her specialties, and my younger brother, Larry, and I were in our new flannelette pajamas, fresh from the catalogue parcel that had arrived. Most things came from the catalogue.
Now, as it was Christmas Eve, there was mother, my little brother, the cats and myself settling down. My older brother, Robert, and father were out doing other things.
I found a hair brush, a towel, a nail file and nail scissors, ready for the special storytime.
My brother cuddled up with mother and I was doing whatever mother wanted, hair brushing or filing nails.
She read to us and my brother and I helped myself to fudge, while I kept busy doing nice things for my mother.
She read the story, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
She read it from the Book of Knowledge. She had bought it years before, when teaching in a country school in New Brunswick.
It was quiet and the lights were twinkling, from our fresh, fragrant Christmas tree. Outside, the white snow gave its own sparkling light.
The story and the lesson of kindness, sharing and caring for others, and that special evening with family stays with me, in my memory, always!
It is just the way mother would have wished us to remember.
Geraldine McLennan 鈥� a special mother and teacher.
Donna Guns
Victoria
The Marzipan Ball
Fondest memories of Christmas past take me on a journey to the countryside of rural England in the mid-1950s, when items of luxury were still in short supply.
Standing at the kitchen table, I put on my apron, eager to make the smoothest and easiest almond paste to cover the home-baked Christmas cake.
Weighing the ingredients on my tiny scales, I emptied them in a large white bowl and mixed them with a light touch, to give a soft consistency to the best-ever almond paste, pliable enough to roll out and cover the cake.
To my horror, as I rolled and kneaded the mixture with two hands, it became hard as a cricket ball.
I hit it with the rolling pin to try and break it down. When this didn鈥檛 work, I added a few drops of essence to the marzipan ball, making it worse.
The ball, now a sticky mess, clung to my fingers. I smothered my hands in icing sugar, picked up the ball and had begun to use the rolling pin to flatten it out when the ball bounced off the table and rolled on the floor, landing on the coconut matting near the kitchen door.
Spikes of stiff straw clung to it, making it look like a porcupine covered with quills. Picking it up, I wondered what to do, as each time I went to use the rolling pin, the marzipan ball took to leaping off the table and bouncing on the floor.
I opened the door to the kitchen and threw the ball high in the air, thinking it would land to the ground below. But no! With an almighty bang like a thunderbolt it hit the ground, ricocheted on the side wall of the house next door, and bounced at an unimaginable speed to bang on the door before it fell to the ground.
For seconds I watched, then hurried inside to peep from the kitchen window, as a little old lady I had never before seen came out of her side door. She raised her eyes heavenward, looked down at her feet and went back inside her house.
The next morning, I followed the garden path to the garage door and stopped. There looking up at the sky was the marzipan ball, flat as a pancake.
When I served the Christmas cake, the first question asked was: Where鈥檚 the marzipan? Giving a sheepish grin, I said not this year, but there is more icing of snow on the Christmas trees to decorate the cake.
Oh, but I liked the marzipan, said the voice. Me too, I said.
And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all.
Caroline Whitehead
Sidney
A special stuffing from long ago
Like all families, we have special memories of celebrating Christmas activities in our own traditional ways.
It was in the early 1950s that this tradition began, and it has been shared every year since.
I was nine or 10 when I first heard of a most unusual addition to our Christmas dinner menu. My dad read Jack Scott鈥檚 column in the Vancouver Sun daily. One year, he called out to mum and me about Jack鈥檚 topic for the day.
He read it to us and it was epic. It was a recipe for turkey dressing 鈥� but what ingredients! Many we鈥檇 never heard of. (And my mum and dad were foodies before there was such a term).
Dad announced that he was undertaking this challenge, but we had to be hard-working skivvies throughout, to ensure we didn鈥檛 omit a single ingredient. He sensed that this would be the 鈥減iece de resistance鈥� he鈥檇 been seeking for years to show off his skills to the many guests we had at our Christmas feast.
We were a family of three, but many cousins, co-workers and often new Canadians that mum arranged to come through the Immigration Department were always in attendance.
There were never less than 25 at the main table, the ironing board, the kids鈥� bridge table, etc.
Now, all these years since, we still tell each other the story of Dad鈥檚 Dressing.
Even so, I was surprised three years ago when my son said he wanted a particular gift for Christmas. His usual answer when I queried family members on what gift I could provide was to say: 鈥淥h just a card 鈥� Christmas is for kids.鈥�
But this time, he said he鈥檇 like Jack Scott鈥檚 recipe and any of the ingredients he didn鈥檛 have on hand. He wanted to replicate as much as possible the original dressing, to find out if it really was the 鈥淲orld鈥檚 Best.鈥�
So I was on the hunt for the recipe. I asked the paper. No one there knew anything about it.
Of course, the Sun wasn鈥檛 computerized then, and I wasn鈥檛 sure of the year. There were boxes of papers in the basement, but who knew where to look for one article? Then the switchboard staffer phoned me back with an idea for someone who might help 鈥� a retiree who had been the last staffer acting as 鈥淓dith Adams,鈥� the columnist who gave cooking demos and sought out recipes for readers. 鈥淓dith Adams Kitchen鈥� was a source for many who wanted new or easier recipes.
This former Edith might remember something, the staffer thought. Indeed she did, and VOILA! as my dad taught my son to say, I received a funny old grey typewritten page 鈥� very long! 鈥� with the recipe.
So exciting! Sure enough, we didn鈥檛 have a third of the ingredients in our cupboard. I was able to round up all but two, by wheedling friends to figure out where to find particularly scarce items.
So I know that in a few days, he鈥檒l be digging out the old recipe and checking the freshness of the more arcane spices, in preparation for the traditional Christmas turkey for 2020.
Gail Greenwell Simpson
Esquimalt
A warm Christmas in Florida
My most memorable Christmas holiday was one spent in Florida, where the only white thing was the sand on the beach of the Gulf Coast.
My now-deceased twin and I were in our mid-teens. It took about two days to drive down from Ontario. It was Dad that did the driving.
The name of the trailer park was Shady Haven, and our folks were, despite being in their 50s, the youngest in the trailer park. But all the seniors there were as nice as they were old.
My mom joined some of the ladies on Christmas Eve to sing carols for all the trailers. Where else can you attend Christmas Mass in the morning and the same afternoon go to one of the Florida Keys and swim in the Gulf of Mexico?
Later, we had a delicious Christmas dinner in the park hall with, of course, pumpkin pie and ice cream for desert. One couple even let my twin and I use their bikes 鈥� told you they were nice people.
We went sailing in our Sunfish and of course, no Florida vacation would be complete without a trip to Disney World and Epcot Center!
Andre Mollon
Victoria
Strong faith and a sense of pride
I was visiting my parents, who were living at the time in Mexico. On Christmas Eve, friends invited us to join them in the celebration of Mass in a nearby village.
Not familiar with the Catholic service, which, in this instance, was being conducted in Latin and Spanish, I sat in a meditative state and began to look around.
The church was small and could not have accommodated more than a hundred people. The building was brick with wrought iron window and door frames.
Paper flowers in clay vessels, together with strands of wool woven with thousands of pine needles, provided most of the seasonal decoration. But my eye was drawn to one detail that I found quite startling.
What at first I had thought was a panelled ceiling was, on closer examination, a flat surface, probably plaster, painted to resemble elaborately constructed beams and cross braces and panelling of a kind one might expect to see in a great cathedral in a place like Mexico City, Guadalajara or Madrid.
All this had been done with an eye to light and shadow, a brilliantly executed trompe l鈥檕eil when seen from below, as if illuminated by the light of candles or windows facing south and west.
I was deeply moved by the faith and sense of pride the local people must have had in their small, plain sanctuary, to have decorated it to resemble something so much more grand and beautiful than is usually seen where plaster and paint are the only resources at hand.
Tom Masters
Chemainus
