on Winter and Christmas....

As a child growing up I couldn't wait for the leaves to turn and a chill settle in the air. I knew by these signs winter was on the way. Winter always held a magical almost ethereal mysticism about it. I loved returning to school. The smells of chalk dust and pencil shavings were, in some warpped way, a comfort for me. It meant all was good and my comfort zone (at least for that day) was as it should be.

I remember watching the street lights nightly once hallowe'en was over. I watched, waited and prayed for snow. When winter came and snow was on the ground I felt closest to my family. Better than all of that though was the thought of Christmas. To this day I love Christmas. I don't know too many people who don't. As a kid I couldn't wait to open gifts Christmas morning. Passing the gifts to my siblings and parents that I had bought/made them was my least favourite part of Christmas morning. I was never quite sure if my gifts were going to be well received or chucked in the corner. I would have been devestated if anyone had made comment on a lousy gift, but that never happened, see what I mean Christmas magic. There was one Christmas that brought cold hard reality crashing down around me. My mother had obviously been shopping with my best friends' mother. Everything I got that year was exactly what my friend Diane had gotten. I couldn't believe my ears when I was showing her all the wonderful gifts and she kept saying, "I got that too", it was depressing at best. The only thing I got that she didn't was a sweater. She got a lot more than I did but I didn't care about that, she was pretty much an only child, but how could my mother have done that. I was 14 and my first year in high school, groan. Once my birthday had come and gone (a couple of weeks later) I had fogotten all the nonsense of the gifts and forgiven my mother. Silly now when I look back on it, but at the time I thought "man mom, couldn't you think of something for yourself, does everything I have have to be just like Diane?". Yikes! We were friends not sisters.

So, with Christmas behind us we settled into the long Canadian winter that stretched yet another 2 or 3 months before us. I was never bored in winter. It was (stress on the past tense) my favourite time. I would go tobogganning with one of my many brothers or skating at the local rink. Playing street hockey was always a highlight of the winter. The local boys never minded me playing (and if they did they were gracious enough not to say so) they even coached me on some stick handling, so I was pretty much one of the guys. I was the only teenage girl on the street so it was always up to me to create my own fun. Unlike other neighbourhoods I visited ours was mostly guys and old people. In my teenage mind 40+ was bloody well ancient. Now? Well, now 60+ even isn't so old. I don't know, it just seemed to be a simpler time. I don't remember any stress, although I am sure there was always stress for my parents. If the stress was there it never or seldom ever showed. We didn't always have fantastic meals, but hot, hearty and bountiful was the mandate in our house. Lots of potatoes, lots of hamburg meat and (being Roman Catholic) fish every blessed Friday. That is probably the only thing I don't miss about childhood winters at home. To this day, I am not a big fish feind. If I eat fish now you have to check if a snowball has found it's way into hell. Not that I don't like fish, I just don't go out of my way to eat it. I love salmon, shrimp and all shell fish, just not wild about boston blue fish, haddock, and any other cheap fish around.

I have come to the understanding, as an adult, to be happy and grateful with the memories I have of my childhood, there are those around who have much less. Christmases now are filled with friends and family and phone calls zinging around Canada to sisters, daughters, brothers and sons. Hopefully my aging mother will be here for one more Christmas, but if not, then she has blessed me with a plethora of memories with her at the helm of Christmas to draw on for the rest of my life. Thanks mom.