My dad was not really part of any organized religion but he truly loved Christmas. When I was growing up he’d slip me $20 in the early days of December to buy Christmas gifts. It was enough money to buy gifts for the whole family at the Hudson’s Bay downtown store, though I had to shop in the store’s basement space.
We’d buy our Christmas tree from the Boy Scouts who sold them from a lot at the top of our street. It was always my job to fill the red reservoir of the stand with water every day. I don’t recall ever going to Church at Christmas but I do remember our cat climbing the decorated tree. One time his weight slowly bent the tree until the top touched the floor at which point he stepped delicately off onto the carpet. We switched to a phony tree shortly after that.
When we brought our first artificial tree home from the Clarks department store on Grant Avenue dad didn’t like the look of the included stand. He didn’t think it looked stout enough; doubtless our tree climbing cat was giving him pause. So he punched a hole in the bottom of the old tree stand to allow the artificial trunk to pass through and then screwed the whole thing to a round piece of plywood. My dad seldom threw anything away so punching the hole in the stand was a safe bet that our chances of ever moving back to a real tree were remote.
We also had a cardboard fireplace and hearth that we gleefully set up. We’d decorated it and the living room with plastic strings of Santa Clause decorations. It was the height of cheesiness but we all looked forward to putting it together and setting it up. Another constant was watching Alistair Sim in A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve on CBC’s channel six. We’d all sit around munching treats waiting on Scrooge to get the Christmas spirit. I still watch that movie every year.
Every Christmas day my sister, brothers and I would awake to lots of wonderful presents stuffed into the pillow cases we’d put out the night before. I remember road racing sets, a cheap stereo that seemed to be made out of cardboard and dozens of other memorable presents.
I once found a Minerva radio with 8 transistors at the bottom of my pillow case. I absolutely loved that radio although it disappeared somewhere along the line. An earlier radio present was a Rocket Crystal Radio. The red and white radio had an alligator clip attached to the end of a long thin wire. To make the radio work you’d simply attach the clip to any nearby metal object. Once attached you’d find local A/M radio stations by pulling out the metal nosecone of the rocket. I’d lie in bed with the alligator clip attached to the metal heating duct in the ceiling listening to CKRC after I’d been sent to bed.
Another great present was a chemistry set. It was a big orange fold out metal thing with three sections. It was stuffed with dozens of little bottles of chemical powders. There was also a white plastic scale, half a dozen test tubes and a holder to use when heating concoctions over the alcohol burner. There was also an assortment of tools for the budding chemist. I don’t recall ever looking at the instructions but I spent hours on the kitchen table mixing chemicals and heating them over the flaming burner.
Christmas also meant plenty of food. My folks bought lots of Christmas cake at that time of year, both dark and light, although I always preferred the light. They bought lots because it would seldom last a day after being brought home from the Shop-Easy store. There would be marzipan to spread on the Christmas cake.
Christmas breakfast was always cold pork pies with mustard pickle, hard boiled eggs, golf-balled sized pickled onions and various types of cheeses. The kitchen cupboards held Ritz crackers, Old Dutch chips and bags of nuts, in their shells, for snacking. We had an old silver nutcracker that only got used in December.
Mum would spend weeks baking shortbread cookies, mincemeat and lemon curd tarts plus my favourite, Bakewell pies. Hoping to have something still around on the 24th she’d hide the fruits of her labours at the bottom of the freezer but my brother and I would always find them. We’d grab a handful of frozen tarts before heading off to our bed in the basement most nights.
Christmas dinner included turkey and stuffing plus mashed potatoes, mashed up carrots and turnip, Brussels sprouts and quarts of gravy. Dad worked for the CNR and every year they’d give him a plum pudding. The big tin never had any wrapping but we knew what it was when he brought it home from work. The hot pudding would be served with mum’s warm custard sauce poured all over it. Not many people eat plum pudding anymore but I still look around for one every Christmas, sometimes fruitlessly.
Dad loved all types of fish and for many years I’d give him a jar of pickled herring for Christmas. He’d dutifully open them in front of me, smack his lips and taste one. Much later in life he told me pickled herring was the one fish he didn’t like. In fact he said he hated them more than olives, which he just could not eat.
Dad always worked to make Christmas special for his kids even when we got older. One year he used a numbering system rather than the more traditional method of putting names on presents. Then he pretended he’d lost the code. Nobody knew if the present they’d been handed was for them until the wrapping was off. Once the gift was unwrapped dad would make a pronouncement of who it was actually for. On another Christmas he gave each of us a Toblerone candy bar, raising eyebrows at his thriftiness. What we didn’t know was that he’d slit the plastic wrap and slipped a cheque beneath the cardboard packaging.
The best Christmas present my dad ever gave me was his last Christmas day. He’d been nonverbal for a couple of weeks and it was becoming clear the end was coming. Mum and I went to visit him at the nursing home after our family Christmas Day breakfast, the first one he’d ever missed. When we arrived dad was dressed in his wheelchair and we sat in the sun filled common room just outside his bedroom. He didn’t speak but knew we were there.
I’d prearranged a telephone call with his sister in England and when I held up the phone he heard her say hello. Dad broke into a huge grin and clearly said “my sister”. She chatted with him for a final time that Christmas day. He was so happy I started to cry.