Of all the holidays in our largely Christian-centred society, Christmas seems to be the one with the most emphasis on family and friends, for remembering the past, and for missing those who are not with us. It is a time of nostalgia, for thinking about Christmases past and traditions handed down through generations.
Preparations for Christmas are full of connections to family and friends. My first Christmas task is usually writing and mailing our annual Christmas letter, a tradition we started in the first year of our marriage when we lived far away from all of our family and friends. I look down the list of names and addresses, and think of each person on that list. There are former students, of course, but there are also a couple of childhood friends, one or two friends from high school days, cousins and distant cousins, members of various churches where my husband ministered before Chaplaincy led us East. There are a few mentors, although they are not as numerous as they used to be, former colleagues, campers from the summer camp where we worked a lifetime ago, and former roommates. Each name on that list represents a connection from the past, a story on the timeline of our lives, someone treasured and remembered with love. And every year, names are removed from the list, people who have moved on, or people who have passed into the next life. These names are remembered with sadness for their loss and gratitude for their significance in our lives.
The next task is to decorate our tree, another connection to people and places and events as we sort through ornaments that have accumulated over time. There is the ornament from a former Fine Arts student who suffered a devastating head injury and had to re-learn how to paint; the lovely painted paper pear that she gave us was one of the first things she created after her injury. There are handmade ornaments and cards from another former student who lived with
us for an academic year after her accommodation plans fell through
literally at the last possible minute, and truly became part of our
every day family life for a time. My best friend’s mom, recently gone,
cross-stitched a small ornament to commemorate our first Christmas as a
married couple. We each have ornaments from childhood. My husband and I
remember our tentative early relationship as we hang the ornaments we
bought each other at The Bay in downtown Winnipeg on the spur of the
moment; since then, exchanging ornaments at Christmas has become part of
our tradition. There are the lovely little ornaments that we bought
together for our very first Christmas tree in Hamilton, glass and wooden
ornaments from Sterrman’s, a little store across the street from our
apartment in Westdale, and Eaton’s. Other ornaments remind us of times
spent in other places: the bison ornament from Manitoba, the origami
paper doll that we brought back from Japan, the glass ball filled with
the red sand and tiny beach treasures from Prince Edward Island, wooden
lighthouses from Nova Scotia, and a Grey Cup replica to remind us of the
excitement of being part of a Grey Cup winning team in 2016. We have
ornaments made by our children in various schools and Sunday schools as
they grew, and others that I made with them, memories one of my very
favourite traditions with them. There are ornaments made by my mother
and by me, ornaments made by friends, and ornaments made by other
children we have watched grow, like the rice trees made by children who
were part of our every day lives for a period of 5 years while their
father attended Mount A; one of our favourite Christmas memories of them
was the year they bought a Christmas lobster that was so large they had
a hard time finding a pot to cook it in, and the children led their
“pet” lobster around their kitchen on a leash. 
I recall traditions we began with our children. When they were smaller, and we had more people around our home, we started a tradition of asking visitors to draw their hands on a piece of construction paper. The hands were arranged on the front door in a wreath shape, a visual reminder of our connection to others. I still have those hands, and look at their sizes and shapes and the names written on them with affection. Another tradition was decorating a Jesse tree, a young tree that we pulled from our yard and “planted” in a cement base in a juice can. Every day we would read a story from the Bible, starting with the story of Creation and continuing into Advent, and place an ornament on the Jesse tree to help us remember the traditions of our faith.
All of these tangible reminders of Christmases past lead to memories of particular Christmases. When I was a child, my family lived in Kitimat, B.C. for several years, where my father was the minister of a church consisting largely of German immigrants. My memories of Christmas in Kitimat are filled with deep snow, German food, immense church choirs, pageants, and a beautiful green advent wreath suspended by red ribbons over the communion table. One special Christmas, my older cousin and her husband, who were expecting their first child, spent Christmas Eve with us. That might have been the same Christmas when we went in search of a Christmas tree along the highway leading out of Kitimat. The snow was so deep that we were able to cut the top off of a spruce tree in the ditch. It was filthy from being beside the highway and had to be washed and dried before we could decorate it. Because my dad was a minister and we lived great distances from any extended family, the few Christmases that we were able to share with family were extra special. One memorable Christmas, we took the train from Manitoba to Mission, B.C. to spend Christmas with my grandparents. The train trip was spectacular and a lot of fun. My grandparents, who did not read English well, bought me a book because they knew I loved to read; it was a romance novel, highly inappropriate for a 13-year-old girl. I’m sure my grandmother would have been mortified if she knew what kind of book it was, but I loved its illicitness. Another Christmas, when we lived in Kamloops, my mother’s entire family came to spend the holiday with us in our small bungalow. We walked the hills around Kamloops, ate a lot of food, and enjoyed the time spent together.
When I got married, Christmases changed. My husband is also a minister, and we lived in Hamilton, in between my parents in Manitoba and my in-laws in Nova Scotia. We spent our first Christmas by ourselves in our little apartment, and ate Christmas dinner at the home of an elderly couple who were friends of our families. Christmases in southern Ontario were filled with Hamilton Philharmonic performances of “Messiah,” the occasional professional performance of “The Nutcracker,” and other “big city” events.
One of my favourite southern Ontario Christmases was when I was pregnant with my first child. We decided to fly to Nova Scotia to spend part of Christmas with my husband’s family. My husband had services on Christmas Eve and our flight was booked for late Christmas afternoon. A neighbouring extended family who became our “family” invited us for Christmas breakfast. We spent a lovely, relaxed, happy day with them, highlighted by a nap in front of their fireplace for my husband, and a peaceful walk through their snowy woods for me. It was so pleasant that it was with great reluctance that we left them to go to the airport. Once our children were born, Christmas changed again. My parents and brother joined us for our first Christmas in Sackville when I was pregnant with our second child. Our 3-1/2 year old son, who woke very early on Christmas morning, saw the light on under the door of the downstairs washroom while my father was using it, and ran into our room to tell us that Santa was in our washroom. Christmases were filled with the excitement and awe and enthusiasm of children, eventually evolving into slightly calmer holidays as they grew to adulthood (although this year was only the 2nd year that our now-24-year old daughter slept past 6 a.m.).
Our Christmases for the past 25 years have been shared with various family members and students. For several years, we had a small group of students from Africa who variously spent Christmas Day with us. In my daughter’s Grade 12 year, we added an exchange student from Denmark who was in her class. My nephews, who are younger than my children, re-introduced the joy of young children to our Christmas celebrations. More recently, a young Syrian family has shared Christmas dinner with us; this year, with the addition of twin girls to their family last January, there were three small children in our gathering.
Food reminds us of people and days gone by. Our traditional Christmas baking recipes include my best friend’s Cranberry White Chocolate Chip cookies, Nuts & Bolts from the family of the former Baptist minister we knew from Brandon, Manitoba who later became my husband’s supervisor in St. Catharines, Ontario (we spent a lovely Christmas Eve with them one year complete with their Dutch tradition of lighting real candles on the tree, but only for a moment!), and of course, traditional Christmas cake and shortbread from my Nana and mother, and fruitcake recipes from both sides of our family which are very similar except that my family’s fruitcake is soaked in Jamaican rum which reflects their history there, and my husband’s family’s fruitcake in brandy.
The spiritual remembrances of Advent and Christmas connect us on a whole other level to those who have gone before over centuries. The carols we sing, the scriptures we read, the special services and cantatas we attend all remind us that we are part of a much larger tradition.
As we grow older, inevitably, there are bigger holes in our celebrations. Both of our fathers are gone, and for me, Christmas is not as complete without my dad. He loved children, and loved Christmas, and I think of him a lot at this time of year. One day we will inevitably face Christmas without one or both of our children as they pursue their lives; perhaps they will have families of their own, or perhaps they (or we) will relocate to homes which make it more difficult for us to be together. As the life cycle continues to evolve, and we become more secure in our own identities and strengths, we become mentors ourselves, names hopefully to be recalled with fondness and gratitude.
Traditions can become meaningless or onerous, and for many people, the traditions of Christmas create stress. But I find peace and connection in the continuity of the traditions of our family that remind me of times past, of gentler days, of friends and people we love. The memories and inspiration we find in the traditions and people of times past help us create a more meaningful and kind present, and possibly even a more meaningful and hopeful future. I hope that our traditions and celebrations will continue to inspire and encourage us, and that in turn, our lives might become a source of encouragement and inspiration for others in the years that lie ahead, whether or not we are together at Christmas.
