A Child’s Christmas
I remember our entire school at Ridgeway Elementary in North Vancouver coming together in the school gym to sing Christmas carols. We sat cross legged on the gritty, cold floor and I recall the vague discomfort against my bare legs (skirts or dresses were mandatory). With lyrics gripped in our hands our collective child’s voice was thunderous. Our music teacher Mrs. Stephan was always cheerfully enthusiastic with her piano accompaniment. Bedecked in a flowered polyester dress, her curled grey hair trembled as her meaty arms banged out the carols on the old upright piano. I loved it.
I remember the miniature hair brush revealed in my christmas cracker one Christmas Eve dinner. Basking in my father’s attention, I brushed his lamb chop sideburns thinking how handsome he was, all of us held in the festive atmosphere and the excitement of the next day.
I remember spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day in our living room, the room we only lived in during special occasions. With its perfect blue carpet and the upholstered furniture cool and beautiful to the touch, the big bay window looked out to the expanse of Grand Boulevard. The fireplace was lit and the scent of wood smoke heightening the special occasion. The Christmas decorations were hauled out from the attic and included the brass bells held together with ancient string. The bells were polished, hung and jingled until my parents couldn’t stand it anymore. These bells still come out every year to be polished, hung and rung. My Dad – a child at heart – had a soft spot for wind-up or battery-operated toys. We had several relics that came out of their boxes every year, batteries replaced if necessary and set to wiggle and pop on the coffee table, Dad chuckling at the predictable mechanical moves. I carry this tradition on with my father in mind, and over the years have collected wind-up toys to bring to life at the Christmas table.
I remember the relatives arriving in their Sunday best, Mom bringing out the silverware and the blue glass stemmed goblets the colour of the Mediterranean for the fancy Christmas cocktails. Mom’s staunch health food rituals were flung aside and my siblings, cousins and I slurped Orange Crush, sucked on candy canes, and reveled in Purdy’s chocolates. It was Christmas culinary heaven.
I remember waking in the night to scoot my toes down to the end of the bed until I could feel the lump of my Christmas stocking (my parents bucked the fireplace mantle tradition). With delayed gratification deliciously unknown to me, I opened my stocking right then and there, bypassing the tissue wrapped mandarin to nibble the chocolate coins wrapped in gold. The taste of chocolate in the middle of the night – sheer childhood joy.
When we were older, Christmases moved from our North Vancouver home to King Edward Bay and different traditions grew around the rustic setting that was our 2nd home. Less formality, more lingering with roaring fires in the old stone fireplace. The Christmas tree was collected from the surrounding forest with much ado, the entire family tromping out together to select the perfect specimen that was invariably mis-shapen and too tall putting Dad’s engineering skills to the test. With machete in hand, Dad chopped the tree down with theatrical flair while we belted out “Oh Christmas Tree”. None of us knowing all the words. It didn’t matter.
The Letson clan were staunch Christmas enthusiasts and although I’m sure there were bad times, I don’t remember any as a child. The years have rolled on and our family lives in a different constellation now. Dad is gone, Mom is 92 years old, and the grandchildren have started their own families and traditions. And so it goes. What remains is the conduit of love and connection that my parents fostered and the possibility of little Christmas magic.
