The Fireball Christmas Tree
It was bitterly cold, perhaps the coldest winter during the Second World War. Holland was under German army occupation and still several months away from liberation by the Canadian Forces.
That winter was particularly severe. In a way, we were lucky that we lived in a small village south of the big city of Haarlem and in a well-treed area. The occupiers forbid us to cut trees for firewood or even go into the forested areas, possibly for security reasons, as they had set up V1 and V2 rocket launchers to attack the British Isles from that location. Dad tried to explain that to us.
Of course, Dad, with typical Dutch stubbornness, would often sneak out at night to collect twigs, sticks or whatever firewood he could find near and around this treed area, always taking a big chance that he wouldn’t be caught by the Nazis, as there would be severe consequences.
As Christmas approached, we had been huddling around a small potbelly stove in the living room, the only tiny bit of heat in an otherwise frozen house, but still Mom and Dad, my two sisters and I all agreed a Christmas tree was really needed.
For this next urgent venture, Dad picked a snowy night and very late crept into the forested area, his saw in hand. He hadn’t gone far when he came across a spruce tree. The falling snow muffled the sawing noise, and it wasn’t long before he came back home with our Christmas tree. It was a full week before Christmas and we kept our prized tree hidden just in case there was an unexpected visitor.
At last Christmas arrived and the tree came out of hiding. Now it was time to decorate with the best possible homemade decorations and, of course, the little white wax candles. On that chilly Christmas morning, we celebrated by placing our clay-coloured Christmas statues into the Christmas crib. There wasn’t much to eat, but we sang our hearts out, singing Holy Night-Silent Night many times.
It was time to light all the white-wax candles in our tree. Mom and Dad kept strict control of the matches. Of course, that was long before electric candles.
Not long after the singing of Silent Night for about the fourth time, there was a scream from Mom. She always worried about lit candles in the Christmas tree and sure enough, the tree was entirely engulfed in a fireball.
What to do? In war time, there was no fire engine or emergency assistance. Dad sprang into action. Somehow, he grabbed this flaming torch and ran through the house, leaving a trail of smoke and angry sparks, and dumped the burning tree out the back door into the snow, saving our little frozen home.
That was one Christmas we talked about for years later.
In my time of celebrating many warm, wonderful Christmas festivities with family and good friends, that particular Christmas in those tumultuous times will always stay with me.
John Van Bakel
Victoria
Chicken for Christmas
I was born in England in the 1930s. I remember many Christmases, but my favourite occurred a couple of years after the end of the Second World War. Food rationing still existed, but was gradually easing.
The problem with food rationing was mainly meat. At one time, things like the beef and mutton you bought from the butcher dropped to two ounces per person per week. But at no time did we go hungry, because vegetables were never rationed and you could eat all you wanted. It’s said that the British were healthier during the war than they have ever been.
My father had an allotment garden, and I helped him there. It was a strip of a former school football (soccer) field and was infested with wire worms, which bored holes in the potatoes. We ate a lot of potatoes and I still love them.
But it was meat that we craved, a nice roast chicken hot out of the oven with the family sitting down together at the festive table — that was the peak of the Christmas dinner.
I should explain that birds were raised differently then. There was nothing like the little six-week-old “broilers” that we have today — these had not been invented. The seasonal cycle governed how birds were raised: Eggs were laid in spring and the birds were raised in outdoor wire pens or open fields, foxes permitting.
By the time Christmas rolled around, these were big birds. One bird could feed our family of four for two meals, with pickings and soup from the bones. Mind you, my little sister hardly ate any.
Turkeys were more delicate birds to raise, and hence cost more, so not many people had a turkey. One year, we had a goose, which was nice but gave an amazing amount of liquid fat when roasted.
Frozen birds did not exist — my parents, like most people, did not have a refrigerator — so meat had to be purchased a day or so before it was consumed and kept in the pantry, which for us was a storeroom kept slightly cool by being sunk a foot or so lower than the rest of the ground floor.
Birds were better-tasting than nowadays, since running around the fields for six months or so develops good strong legs. Hence, the dark meat is really dark and sharply different in flavour from the breast meat, unlike in modern birds, where all the meat seems the same bland stuff.
My home town was Doncaster, a small market town in the north of England founded by the Romans. The name translates as “camp on the dun (muddy river).” It lies where the north-south trade and east-west trade routes cross and is in an agriculturally rich region.
It has an important Saturday market that was chartered in 1248 and covered several acres, with open areas for temporary stalls and several buildings for items such as fish, meats, cloth, pottery, baked goods and small animals, including ferrets.
The largest building was the Corn Exchange, which was no longer used for its original purpose. I sang in it in a children’s Christmas choir when it was used as a theatre.
Usually, you pre-ordered your Christmas bird from your butcher and picked it up ready-prepared a day or two before, but that year, we hadn’t, so my father decided to walk into the Saturday market and see what birds were available, and I went with him. We were also going to buy the vegetables, including Brussels sprouts.
Our route took us by the livestock market where farmers took their animals to be auctioned off. It was always entertaining to watch the auctioneer with his rapid patter calling out the bids and encouraging higher ones. I couldn’t even understand what he was saying, but I was warned not to say anything or even scratch my nose, or I might accidentally buy something.
As we approached, there was a pen full of fattened chickens being auctioned and we joined the edge of the crowd to watch.
Very rapidly, the price was determined, but the successful bidder did not want all the birds. “Anyone else want one?” said the auctioneer and a few people put up their hands, including, to my surprise, my dad.
“Alive or dead?” I shall never forget the auctioneer’s question. “Dead” said Dad, and a bird was grabbed from the pen, there was a quick twist of the neck and the now lifeless bird was handed my dad, who was actually a very gentle, squeamish person. He instantly handed it to me.
I must have been only 10 or 11 and not a very tall kid. We had no spare bag — plastic bags had not been invented — and the beak was dripping slightly.
If I held it with one hand, the head would drag on the ground so I had to hold the feet in both hands on my chest with the head dangling.
It was heavy, but we walked back home, my arms aching, and the family jointly plucked and cleaned this lovely chicken, which was delicious.
I look back on many Christmases, but the year I brought back the chicken is one of my fondest.
Joe Harvey, Victoria
The Midnight Mice
It was almost midnight on Christmas Eve. Everyone was in bed except Mom. She had finished wrapping the last few presents and made sure the stockings were ready for Santa.
It had been a long, hectic day and the following day was going to be busier. She was looking forward to it. The house would be filled with all the traditional Christmas feelings of a house full of happy family and friends.
But for now, Mom decided to take advantage of the quiet and relax for a few minutes.
She made a quick cup of instant coffee and settled into the cozy chair beside the decorated tree.
The only light in the room came from the Christmas tree and a small string of sparkling lights around a nearby window.
Mom looked at the tree decorations and smiled at the memories they brought — a delicate bunch of purple grapes that had belonged to her grandmother, the bubble lights that seemed to take so long to get hot enough to bubble, special decorations made by little hands. This tree would never win prizes in a display competition, but it was well loved!
It was a big tree with perfect branches on both the top and the bottom. That had presented a problem when they brought it home. The tree was too tall for the room. To Dad, the solution was obvious. In the living-room floor, drill a hole the exact width of the tree trunk, put the trunk in the hole and the perfect lower branches would hold the tree upright. The perfect top branches would then be a few inches below the ceiling. It worked. The tree was perfect.
As for the hole in the floor, we would worry about it after Christmas.
But it had been fun finding the tree, Mom thought. We had driven to the nearby hills where tree hunting was allowed and trudged through the snow. The sky was deep blue, the air was still and the sun was sparkling on the icy snow.
Dad had one rule. “We chop only one tree, so choose carefully. If you see a better tree on our way back to the car we don’t throw away the first one and chop a second one.” Sometimes we saw abandoned trees. It made us sad.
Mom went over in her mind all that she had needed to do to be ready for the next day. It was done.
In the quiet room, the first line from The Night Before Christmas seemed appropriate. She recalled the words. But when she came to the phrase “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,” she sat up and looked across the room. “Oh no! The mouse. I forgot about the mouse.”
On the far side of the room, resting on a wide shelf, was a cage. In the cage was a pretty little white mouse. The mouse was a school project that needed a home for the Christmas holidays. Our house had been chosen. We kids were way more thrilled than mom was!
She looked at the mouse, then looked at the plate of cheese and crackers that had been left out for Santa. “Santa won’t miss a bit of cheese,” she thought and walked over to the bright-eyed mouse. “Here you go little guy. Merry Christmas! What are you giving me?” Mom smiled as she pushed the bit of cheese through the bars.
The mouse quickly took the cheese to the centre of the cage and Mom went back to her chair.
It wasn’t long before Mom was ready to turn out the lights and head to bed.
As she was getting up from her chair, a movement by the mouse cage caught her eye. She could see the white mouse at the edge of the cage. That was fine, but on the outside of the cage was another mouse!
In the dim light, it wasn’t easy to see at first because the mouse was dark brown, almost black. Mom just stared. We didn’t have a mouse problem. There were never chewed food containers, mouse droppings or gnawed wood. Where did this mouse come from?
As Mom watched, the two mice came nose to nose, whiskers twitching. The white one backed away but returned quickly.
The brown mouse stayed by the cage. What Mom saw next amazed her. The white mouse again moved to the middle of the cage, picked up the piece of cheese, went back to the cage edge and gently pushed part of the cheese through the bars to the other side.
The two mice were motionless, then each began to nibble on the cheese. It was just a little piece of cheese so it was gone quickly. Finished, they settled side by side, against the bars, whiskers still twitching.
Mom looked at them. One was small, white and cared for. The other was large, brown and existed on wits. They were two small creatures, living different lifestyles in such different environments, yet they came together on Christmas Eve.
“Perhaps,” Mom thought, “there is hope for the rest of the world”.
Mom quietly said: “Thank you little mouse, for my Christmas present” as she turned off the Christmas tree lights and left the room.
Lynne Trace
The Christmas Cake
The year I turned 17 was a grim one for my family.
My father had been in the hospital and wasn’t back at work yet.
It was New Zealand summer in 1956, with Christmas just two weeks away. For the first time since I could remember, there was no rich Christmas cake, wrapped in sherry-soaked cheesecloth, aging in the provisions cupboard.
Mum’s Christmas cake was a family tradition, but the required ingredients would have been an impossible expense that year. The tight family budget wouldn’t stretch to such frivolities.
It was Saturday night. My best friend and I took the bus into Auckland to go to the weekend dance. There was always a “name that tune” contest where the band would play the first four notes of six dance tunes, and we would name each one.
The prize? A Christmas cake!
I was the first one to answer each of the six test tunes! I won the cake, but my friend had met someone, so I was on my own. I had missed the last bus home, and Papakura was 20 miles away.
Then I spied a shy young man who worked on a farm in a rural area just past Papakura. I knew he had an old car. Tentatively, I asked him if he would give me (and my cake) a ride home. He was happy to give me a lift.
When we got to my gate, I’m sure he expected me to stay and kiss him, but I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, thanked him and was off. I was just too eager to wake my Mum and present her with my prize.
It was after 1 a.m. Mum was bewildered when I burst into her room and woke her. Then I showed her what I had won. She cried!
We had a very modest Christmas that year, but the cake somehow made it special, and its story went into the family archives as a delightful, unexpected happening.
A Victoria resident
The Christmas When Santa Came Early
It was Christmas Eve, 1944.
A squadron of Luftwaffe bombers flew southwest over the North Sea toward Scarborough on the east coast of England.
Their mission was to bomb Manchester with 45 V1 flying bombs attached to the aircraft’s wings. After releasing the bombs, the planes returned to their base in Germany.
This new war technology had one big problem: It lacked an effective guidance system and most of the time, the bombs were off target. In that raid, none of the bombs fell on Manchester.
That year we would spend Christmas with our grandparents in Oldham, a little to the south of Heywood, where we lived, and closer to Manchester.
On Christmas Eve, I slept in a room with my grandfather in the back bedroom of their house. My sister slept with grandma in the front bedroom. Luckily, Dad was a soldier on leave and Mum and Dad were downstairs in the front parlour. No doubt, like all young children approaching Christmas, we would be wondering what presents Santa would bring this year.
In the middle of the night, we were all awakened by a loud explosion. The house shook. In the inky dark of the blackout, my grandfather rolled out of bed, disappearing into the darkness. I shouted to my grandmother that a bomb had knocked granddad out of bed.
“Don’t be silly,” granddad shouted. “I’m just going to see what made that noise.”
Of course we were not allowed to put on the electric light, so taking a small torch, he said: “I’m just going to find out what has happened,” as he disappeared down the stairs. A little while later, he came back upstairs with two pencil cases with coloured pencils, saying that Father Christmas had dropped them off early and would be coming back on Christmas morning with the rest of our presents.
The truth of the matter was that one of the bombs had dropped about a kilometre to the east of where our grandparents lived, killing 27 people, with many more injured.
One bomb flew north after its release and exploded over a cricket ground in the village of Tudhoe, County Durham.
A few hundred yards away, undisturbed by the explosion and sound of shattering glass, a three-year-old girl of whom I had no knowledge was sound asleep.
Many years later, she became my wife and when we were courting, she took me one day into Tudhoe village and she told me the story of the bomb that dropped on the cricket ground December 24, 1944, but couldn’t remember anything about it because she was fast asleep.
Terence Marner
‘Bullet-ridden’ But Home for Christmas
Three days!
That’s all I was asking for. Three days, so I could be home for Christmas.
By the stony look on the headmistress’s face and her incredulous tone of voice, you’d have thought I was a schoolgirl version of Dickens’ artful dodger, begging for the impossible.
“You want MORE!!” No Miss Oakley, not more. Less. Three days less. Three days out of school before the end of term because there was only one plane a week from London to Newfoundland and if I missed it, I would miss Christmas with my family in St. John’s.
Finally “Miss Battleaxe” relented, but with a frosty penalty clause. “This is the last time. Don’t EVER ask again.” Clearly a lack of holiday spirit then in this English girls’ boarding school.
And so, a few days later, I packed my bags and headed for Heathrow airport, joining a handful of other Canadian teenagers going home for the holidays. In those days — the early 1960s — it was not uncommon for Newfoundland families who could afford it to send their kids to school in Britain.
Newfoundland had joined sa国际传媒 well over a decade earlier, but ties to the “old country” remained strong.
And so off I went.
My route was clear.
Step one: A flight across the pond from London to Gander.
Step two: A short plane ride from Gander to St. John’s. What could possibly go wrong? Well have you, I ask, ever experienced a Newfoundland winter? If so, you might guess what happened next.
As the plane touched down in Gander, I saw a landscape engulfed in snow with more snow piling up fast. This was a winter wonderland I did not want.
In the arrivals area, the dreaded announcement came — everything grounded. All flights cancelled. And worse, the road to St. John’s reported to be impassable.
Stuck in Gander on my own for Christmas? Had a vindictive English schoolmarm put a hex on my holiday plans? Not so fast Miss Oakley — you reckoned without the Newfie Bullet!
This splendid narrow gauge railway had been chugging across Newfoundland since 1898 and now all these decades later would be my salvation. Its proper title was “The Caribou,” but it earned the affectionate nickname due to its sprightly pace — average speed barely 30 kilometres an hour.
The local joke was that you could hop off anywhere on the line, pick blackberries and hop back on again no problem! Slowly but surely the Newfie Bullet battled its way along the snow-packed track and by late evening, we were in St. John’s. Home for Christmas.
Just one more job to do. Let my aunt in England know I’d made it. This meant sending a telegram — no easy phone calls in those days, no email, no internet — and with a telegram, each word cost money. Messages were often masterpieces of concise communication. My mother’s was no exception.
“Deb arrived safely. Bullet ridden.”
Deborah Baird
