Christmas

 

Ogilvy's Christmas window with thanks to Pinterest

I hadn't really been very much in the Christmas spirit after US Thanksgiving this year. Tiredness, a feeling that it was all too much. And then, slowly, as the neighbors' Christmas decorations went up, as the Christmas songs and carols started playing on the radio, memories crept in. When my granddaughter performed in our local Nutcracker here in Sierra Vista--four years' worth of memories. When we had ward Christmas dinners with turkey and all the trimmings in Toronto--another four years' worth of memories. Concerts in Toronto and Laurie and I dressing up to go to them—the “professional” Nutcracker performances. Going farther back, to when I was 18-19-20, going to Radio City Music Hall in New York with my sister and her family, seeing the annual Christmas movie and live stage performances, then walking over to the Lincoln Center and watching people skating on the skating rink.

Much farther back, to as early as I can remember, going to the Eaton's Santa Claus Parade, with feet slowly numbing, my mother's handmade and oddball mittens--she knitted them from remnants, no two mittens were alike--barely keeping my fingers from freezing. Walking along Ste Catherine Street in Montreal to see the Christmas windows in Eaton’s, Simpson’s and Ogilvy’s with the magic villages. I found the photo above on Pinterest, I don't know what year it is from; but I see that the McCord Museum once displayed memories of store Christmas windows. 

Today, December 8th, was always a special day for my cousin Kathleen and I. We had the day off school--the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. We were too young to wonder how Mary could have conceived and then given birth within two and a half weeks and it never would have occurred to us to ask our mothers even if it had. A Christmas miracle we would no doubt have been told, quite firmly, with no follow-up questions allowed. 

Kathleen, myself, our mothers, grandmother and great aunt would meet up at Eaton's Main Floor. K and I would shop in the special area set aside with things that children could afford to buy as presents, the strong smell of lavender hovering over us from the huge wicker baskets. A popular gift was a small lavender wicker sachet, the shop assistants filling each sachet from the baskets. K and I agree that we still love lavender for its happy associations. Then we would have a special lunch at Eaton's Ninth Floor Restaurant. Creamed chicken in a pastry puff is what I remember most often (creamed anything was popular with my mother,) followed by a ball of ice cream dressed up with a cone clown hat and small gummy face. Afterward, I remember sitting with my great aunt outside the ladies' room waiting for the others, eyeball to eyeball with her mink tails. I still remember the beady eyes--the minks' not my great aunt's although she was quite good at a beady stare as well. Finally down the escalator to Toyland, with a ride on Eaton's special train that circled the floor, all the wonderful toys displayed in the most tantalizing way. 

A few days later, it was another trip to Eaton's, this time with my father. A crowded Saturday, parking the car a few blocks away, a cold hustle to the store, careful not to slip on ice, avoiding the spray of slush from passing cars. The adults would purchase things in a kind of "divide and conquer" way with Dad and I off somewhere while Mom whirled through Toyland. Then another tramp up the street to Bens Delicatessen for smoked meat, dill pickle and fries. At least one of the Kravitz Brothers would stop at our table to say hello, making us feel like honored guests. Another memory I have of Bens is going there the day I got my first pair of glasses. My parents told the waiter that I had new glasses. "You look beautiful," he said and I felt miles better.

Actually, the strongest memories I have of my dad are around Christmas. He seemed to be around more, more involved. When my sister's boyfriend (later my brother-in-law) came on the scene we would all pile into the Pontiac and go out to the woods to pick a Christmas tree. Not too tall, not too spindly. Tie it on top of the Pontiac, the only occasion where my father would allow such a thing on his usually pristine car. Wrestle it through the back door of our bungalow, down the stairs to the rec room where it would be bedecked with lights and cherished ornaments and the ubiquitous tinsel. Many years later, when my father and stepmum would put up their tiny tree in their apartment, some of those ornaments would reappear--sans tinsel. 

Christmas Eves we would drive out to Dollard des Ormeaux for my mother's cousin's Christmas party. I remember looking out the car window at neighborhoods lit up with lights--simple lights, it wasn't yet the time for very fancy lighting--shining through the piles of snow. Dad's careful driving home in the dark, many times with more snow falling, and the warmth of the house when we got back, our own Christmas lights twinkling outdoors and in. As I got older, we started opening Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve so that we could all sleep in. Christmas Day was the round of visiting grandparents and then turkey dinner at home. Christmas programs on our one English TV channel, a Wayne and Shuster special or Cinderella. 

Many years after, when I was in my 40s and living first in Hamilton, then in Toronto, I would make the 6 hour (sometimes longer depending on the roads) drive to Ottawa the night before Christmas Eve, usually starting off in late afternoon after work. Laurie in the back of our small car, listening to CBC Radio’s Christmas programs. One night I actually made the drive on Christmas Eve itself as I had been delayed, and we both listened to CBC radio “tracking Santa’s progress from the North Pole.” I think the guys at the NORAD station used to get involved.

My dad and stepmom were always so excited when Laurie rang the apartment doorbell. There were no cellphones back then, no checking in as we made the trip, to reassure them I was safely on my journey. I know they had been sitting side by side on their couch for hours. My father's voice on the intercom insisted we wait in the lobby as he got his great coat and boots on and came down to show us where we could park. He always sneaked the apartment superintendent a few dollars so we could get one of the “snowbirds” parking spots that had a block heater for the car. He would wink and chuckle when he told me, so proud to be able to still take care of his little girl.

I see him in my mind’s eye, he who ordinarily never went to church, standing beside me at my stepmum’s church’s Christmas Eve service—they held it at 9 instead of the usual midnight in other churches—singing along with the congregation to “Silent Night” in his beautiful baritone, with the church lights off and each of us holding a lit candle. And then we would crunch our way back through the snow (this was in Ottawa, where they lived the last years of their lives), holding on to each other to make sure we wouldn’t slip. And my stepmom happily putting out all the plates of homemade shortbread and butter tart squares and “sangwiches” (she was from Glasgow and never lost that slight accent she still had) for myself, Laurie, and my stepbrother’s family who would all have come for the service. We'd have a small tot of whiskey and toast each other. The next day, Christmas dinner would be at Bobby's, paper hats and Christmas crackers and a cold walk in the nature preserve after with Gloria, Bobby's wife and the cousins. Bobby would get his guitar out and we would sing Christmas carols always ending my Dad's much-loathed "12 Days of Christmas."

A couple of days later Laurie and I would head on to Montreal, to spend New Year's with Kathleen and her family. Laughter at the New Year's Eve parish party when I, a non-drinker, won a bottle of wine. I traded it with K's husband, who'd won a cookie jar. And then the long, long, drive back to Hamilton or Toronto. 

On my father's last Christmas, he was in the hospital. As R and I were moving to the state of Washington and I was essentially homeless--we'd sold our condo in Toronto, all our goods were in a Ford F150 truck heading across the US with R and the cat--the family had Christmas in the hospital visiting room. Dad was in a wheelchair, my brother-in-law had made the journey from Denver. We came together because we all knew it would be Dad’s last Christmas. Laurie came up on the Greyhound bus from college in southern Virginia, I had driven from Toronto after saying goodbye to my friends there. We stayed at Gloria's—she and Bobby had divorced but we remained “family”—and we would go back to her house after visiting Dad and cry a little. We listened to Diana Krall, watched the snow fall out the window, munched on shortbread and reminisced about all the funny memories we had of Dad and of my stepmom Margaret. We knew an era was drawing to a close and it was bittersweet.

Three days later, I kissed Dad goodbye for the last time, drove Laurie for four hours to her college in Virginia and then turned my old Toyota Tercel toward a place I had never been to, Richland, Washington. I drove for two days from Virginia, stopping the first night at a motel in Kansas City and the second in Denver. The motel owner in Denver, when I told him where I was heading, warned me I’d best be on the road very early as a major snowstorm was coming in.

So that last day, New Year’s Eve, I started out from Denver at 7:00 a.m., driving as fast as I could up the highway toward Wyoming. When I stopped for an early lunch, the cafe owner told me I shouldn't linger. That long lonely highway across Wyoming to Utah, where there are no services, would probably have to close soon. The snow was already starting to fall. Determinedly, I made it to Utah, then up through Oregon, across the Columbia River, listening to my AM radio, to all the “Happy New Year” celebrations first in Australia, then Europe, then New York, to Dr Laura (only thing I could get it seemed), arriving in Richland—I kid you not—as midnight struck in Seattle on the radio. Yep, tiring and yep, too old now. But without those memories, as the line goes in Affair to Remember, winter must be so cold for those with no warm memories.

I am so blessed to have those warm memories and to be able to make still more memories, as I have been doing during 2021. So, this past week, a tree went up in our living room and the wreaths and garlands were strung up on our gate. There will be a Christmas dinner at Laurie's with paper hats and Christmas crackers. There might be no snow but there will be loads of warmth.