Daphne Bramham: Ghosts of Christmas past haunt the present
Credit to Author: Daphne Bramham| Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2019 21:50:27 +0000
My most remembered Christmases were as a child in the snow and Prairie cold when the holiday season officially began on Stir-Up Sunday and ramped up from there.
On the last Sunday before Advent, the candied fruits, nuts and batter are transformed into Christmas cakes then wrapped in cheesecloth and soaked in brandy for a month. It’s an English tradition and on a recent visit to Edinburgh’s Holyrood Palace I learned that The Queen herself often has a hand in the always stirring clockwise as tradition requires using a Scottish spurtle, which is a wooden paddle.
After church on the first Sunday in December, we’d put on our warmest clothes to go to pick our tree from amongst the frozen, flattened firs that had been trucked in from British Columbia. If it was very cold, the process of hefting the trees and picking the heaviest (presumably it had the most branches) was speeded up.
It was only hours later when the branches had thawed and dropped, you’d know whether it was a lucky year or whether Dad would be bringing out the drill and wire to restructure the tree so the bald spot was filled.
After that, Mom had party dresses to finish. There were cookies to be baked, presents bought, invitations extended and accepted and the biggest bird available bought and thawed.
Those best Christmases — joyous, raucous, exhausting days of too much of everything — are long past. The children haven’t just grown up, they’re grandparents now. Our family has morphed into many families.
Over the years, I’ve had many different kinds of Christmas. Some were spent by the pool or at the beach. Some were in the rain with one spectacular Christmas on the stormy west coast of Vancouver Island. There’ve been years spent with friends, not family.
Through them all, I’ve taken bits and pieces from the past — shortbread made from Grandma’s recipe, the stocking I’ve had since I was two, favourite carols and, often, mincemeat.
But this Christmas will be unlike any other. It will only be Mom and me at Christmas lunch, not dinner.
Of course, we’ll be surrounded by others who have no family or friends to go to. We’ll sit at a beautifully decorated table being served turkey and all the trimmings prepared by the lovely chef and his staff at the retirement residence.
It is Mom’s first Christmas there, culminating a year of too many painful changes and a dreadful sense of loss.
“I have no turkey and no oven,” Mom said tearfully last week. I have nothing to give anyone who comes to visit.”
It was only the latest in a long string of seasonal regrets. For Mom, Christmas has always been about giving. But at 91, no longer driving and with walking a challenge, Mom has reluctantly been retired from all if it.
Mom’s elves did what little shopping there was this year. For most on her list, cheques were written with Merry Christmas in the memo line. As welcome as money may be for the recipient and even as needed as it may be, the truth is there’s much less joy in the giving.
Gone was all the stuff that so many of us complain about. There was no shopping amid bustling crowds with annoying carols playing on endless loops. There was no anxiety about what to buy.
But there were also no serendipitous moments of finding the perfect gift for someone who may not normally have been on the list. No eyes will light up as someone discovers a treasure hidden inside a beautifully or crazily wrapped package under the tree.
Inadvertently, my Mom has reminded me that despite all our complaints and anxiety, it’s giving of yourself that is the real joy of Christmas.
It’s the love with which the cookies are made, not the quality of the ingredients.
It’s about waking up so early to put a turkey in the oven that you risk surprising Santa so that in the darkest month of the year you can gather around you and share with friends and family — no matter how perfect or imperfect they may be.
That’s what makes it all so special.
But Christmas isn’t only a time to give. It’s also a time to be grateful for what we receive, for what others do for us, for what we have. And, as the years march on, to be grateful for what we’ve shared.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Twitter: @bramham_daphne