My first Christmas story was written in my ‘FROM MY DESK’ weekly column in the December 1994 Standard-Freeholder. Four more were published from 1995-1999. Every year since then, my ‘DANCES WITH WORDS’ has had a recognition of Christmas. If my calculations are correct, that brings my Christmas columns total to 29.
Here’s my little 2024 letter to Santa: “Dear Santa, there’s been a whopping amount of inflation since I started writing for the Seaway News in the year 2000. However, what the publisher has been slipping in my stocking every year has been the exact same amount. Please, Sir, I want some more!”
I sure hope that Canada Poste Canada strike gets settled in time for that letter to be delivered to 90 degrees North Latitude! And now, on to Christmas column number 29.
My Christmas memories come from 25 years of experiences in my parent’s home in 240 Sorauren Avenue, in Toronto’s Parkdale district. Then, four years in a 2615 Keele Street Downsview area apartment, followed by one in a VW Westfalia camper parked outside a posh hotel in Baden-Baden Germany. After that, one more year in Downsview, in a basement apartment. Ah! The migration to Williamstown, time spent in parents-in-law’s home because our new home was still just my design on paper.
Next, ‘NUT HILL’, 25 years in our own home with three children, on the mighty Raisin River. After that, mostly alone in ‘TLC’, my 1890 house on Glengarry’s Johnson Road. I now share Juliet Gill’s Seaway-era bungalow in Ingleside.
I hope this Christmas travelogue prompts you to do some reminiscing about your Christmases past. Some of my friends and relatives have shared their memories of Christmases in places such as Ethelbert Manitoba. London England, Rotweil Germany and Bogota Colombia.
Wherever you are this Christmas, may there be friends and family around your table and Peace in your land. Don’t forget to set a place at the table in memory of the ones no longer with us. That’s a Ukrainian tradition. “Slava Ukrainia!”
