No Mo’ Sno’

 

You know that snowfall I reported a post or two ago? Well, it kept snowing. And snowing. And snowing, until 35 centimetres had landed on the south island and everything froze in place. No last minute prezzie shopping, no grocery shopping, no visiting, no departing upstairs neighbours. Nothing. The rest of Canada has every right to thumb their noses at us, but that doesn’t make the stress any less stressful for people accustomed to green Christmases.

My snowmance extends to fantasies of being snowed in, of the aforementioned hot tea, fat novels and cozy blankets. The truth is far less enchanting. The truth is even I get cabin fever. It’s not that I would go out, it’s that ability to choose whether or not to go out. Being snowed in negates that agency.

Oh, Ter and I did suit up and venture out the next day. We assessed the Tiguan situation, shovelling off as much of the snow as we could to prevent him from freezing solid when the melt came (it has yet to start). Mercifully, the snow was still light and powdery, and we managed to dust off the hood, windshield and windows, but digging out was too much for two babes in their sixties. Besides, if we’d been able to clear a path to the road, the road itself was impassable.

In a bizarre way, it was fun to be out in bright sun and knee-high snow, working with my proton to move the white stuff around. It felt like we’d accomplished something when we finally came indoors to thaw ourselves out. It’s important to feel empowered in such situations, because it’s hard to stay positive when the challenge continues beyond a day or two, especially as Christmas Day creeps ever closer and there are still things to be done.

I can’t imagine the strain on parents of little kids. How do you explain to a six year old who believes in magic that Santa couldn’t get his sleigh out of the driveway? Yup. I am luckier than most in these Currier and Ives conditions. Perhaps it’s a recognition of how overwhelming life has lately been that my loving friendly and generous Universe has blessed me with a puny-by-comparison set of args this Christmas. I’m warm, I’m safe, I’m fed, so quit whining, Ru.

I submit that it’s all relative. A few days of “severe by west coast standards” snow is hardly a life or death event, but Christmas has taken an odd turn in past years and this was the first holiday season since Mum died that looked promising. I’ve become woefully nostalgic for Christmases past, which in itself is different, if not understandable in the circumstances.

Ter and I used to go all out during the holidays, and while I’m sure we griped and got stressed at the time, I only remember the joy. The tradition. Filling the advent calendar with Quality Street chocolates. Dashing out to pick up sock stuffers during lunch breaks. Shopping trips on weeknights when the stores are less crowded. Baking a ton of cookies. Lavish Christmas teas with friends and family. Wrapping presents in elegant paper. My wee sister’s fabulous mincemeat tarts. Kicking back on Christmas Eve when all was said and done, sipping a ruby mimosa and watching Alistair Sim by the light of the “f***ing soap opera tree”, as a friend once called it. The Christmas Day phone call to my parents ahead of the Queen’s Message.

Everything has changed. My parents are gone. So is the Queen. Our beautiful Edwardian flat was traded for a ho-hum standard apartment. A global pandemic moved in, stayed for two years and never really departed. The world itself seems to have tilted further out of alignment. Indeed, why should Christmas have survived intact?

You have to laugh at the irony. Imagine, Christmas being called on account of snow.

Merry, merry anyway. With love,

Holiday Hoopla

 

We did it. We got the tree up. All three trees, in fact, but the true triumph was in squeezing our six-and-a-half-footer into the corner where we originally thought it wouldn’t fit. We didn’t even try during our first two years in the new place; we bought a tabletop for the living room and made do with a reduction in favoured ornaments. And, no, it was nothing like the same.

This year, Ter lost it. She was absolutely determined to make the Big Tree possible; she even brought it up from the basement to test its dimensions in the corner. It’s embarrassing to admit, but if we had tried it the first year, the tabletop tree wouldn’t have been necessary. Let’s just forget that it never was necessary; at the time, our combined state of mind simply couldn’t do the math what with the stress of COVID, my father’s passing, and Christmas in a new environment.

I’m also somewhat chagrined to admit that the renewed excitement I felt for the holidays this year has seriously waned in the past few weeks. December is always a crash of work, life and seasonal obligation; ironically, Ter and I have ceased to exchange gifts between ourselves. All we want for Christmas is the lights, a few treats, our holiday movies, and the upstairs neighbour to go away for the winter. It appears that we may get our grownup Christmas wish, but man, it’s taking some time to manifest.

In the meantime, our annual obligations—which are less obligations than things we enjoy and want to do each year—require that we try to keep up with the season. Making matters worse is the threat of significant snow this week. Yup, with Santa Day looming, the weather gods are getting their own holly jollies. At least my work routine has ended for the calendar year, though keeping to it for the first half of December was its usual challenge. Or maybe its unusual challenge, given how things have changed in COVID’s wake.

Because they have changed. Or I have. I’m still working out the difference between what happened and what would have happened anyway. Until I figure it out for myself, I am a study in confused philosophy and am a lot less patient with it than I was in the Before Time. Perhaps I will use this holiday season to sort it out. I sure won’t be using the time to celebrate at the same rate as in Christmases past. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad the house is decorated. I had a blast doing the cards. I’m enjoying the lights and the music. I relish having a dozen different cheeses in the fridge and ruby mimosas on a whim. And oat-based nog is a surprisingly favourable alternative to conventional eggnog, in case you’re wondering.

This holiday season will be spent sorting myself out—not terribly entertaining, I admit, but with pure intent to regain my former joie de vivre.

Assuming that my former joie de vivre ever existed, of course. Sometimes I forget who I was when I’m not impressed with who I am. While I get to work on solving that mystery, I’ll appreciate the beauty of the midwinter solstice, the respite from the daily grind, and the abundance of my loving, friendly and generous Universe.

With love,

Christmas Kryptonite

 

Lookee what Ter brought home the other day! Oh, joy! Hallelujah, let the church say “Amen”, Christmas candy is now available – and November has hardly begun!

Remember when holiday treats were truly limited editions? When eggnog, candy canes, boxes of chocolates and tins of cookies were on the shelves for maybe four weeks before Christmas? When the sublime blend of white chocolate and peppermint candy had yet to be invented? I remember those days. I don’t lament them much, either, but whoever decided to mix crushed candy canes into melted white chocolate deserves some sort of culinary—nay, Nobel—award.

Something magical has happened this year. For the first time since the Before Time, I’m getting excited about Christmas. The neighbours behind us put twinkle lights on their balcony a few days before Hallowe’en—it was probably to celebrate Diwali, but I was thrilled with the multi-coloured light show anyway. Eggnog lattes are now available at my coffee haunt, even ahead of Starbucks; I haven’t indulged as yet, but I won’t wait until December to have one. Ter and I are talking about holiday baking again. I’ve listened to Christmas tunes on two occasions so far and she’s confessed to playing holiday discs in the car. And we may be out of our minds in this smaller apartment, but this year, we’re tackling the Big Tree without caring if it overwhelms the living room.

But it started with the Candy Cane Kisses. I don’t even like Hershey’s chocolate, but these little bonbons are deadly addictive (something in the toxic red food colouring, perchance?). Their similarity to my favourite ice cream ever – peppermint candy – could explain it; maybe it’s the refreshing punch of peppermint in the sweet white chocolate. Or the textural contrast of crunchy bits in melty surroundings. Don’t know, don’t care. Get ’em while you can. They might be here early, but they sure won’t stay late.

Think I’ll have just one more ...

Hallow Won't

 

Move Hallowe'en?? Horrors!

There’s an underground rumbling that suggests the scariest night of the year be moved from the last day of October to the last Saturday of October.

WTF?

Granted, the rumbling comes from disgruntled parents and teachers who are inconvenienced by managing children jacked on sugar the day after Hallowe’en, but it also indicates a lack of understanding about the day itself and why it exists in the first place.

“Hallowe’en” is the contracted form of “All Hallow’s Eve”, “All Hallows” being November 1, otherwise known as “All Saints Day” on the religious calendar.

Did I say “religious”? Yes, and I meant to say it. And I’m not apologizing, either. I may not be conventionally religious, but I do enjoy the holidays and observances associated with (and some say stolen from) annual celebrations of spring, fall, and winter.

I wonder why no one bothered to Christianize the summer solstice.

I digress.

Hallowe’en happens on October 31 for a reason. It’s not about the candy. Okay, maybe now it is, but originally, it was the last chance day in the year for evil spirits to work their nefarious magic on innocent souls before the saints came marching in on November 1. The dead rose to walk again, witches cast wicked spells and Satan roamed free. Folks dressed up to fool said evil spirits – and their earthbound minions – on the premise that they wouldn’t be recognized and the spirits would bypass them. That’s where the tradition of Hallowe’en costumes come from. In truth, I’m unsure where the trick-or-treat thing started, though it’s likely rooted in the same occasion, and candy was not the anticipated outcome. Successfully dodging the demons was.

The Easter argument doesn’t support moving October 31, either. Easter happens in coincidence with Passover, an event dependent on the lunar cycle, which is not attached to a static date. Candy wasn’t the anticipated outcome at Easter or Passover, either, by the way. I’m not at all sure where chocolate fits into history though, being a fool for Cadbury Creme eggs, I do appreciate its presence in the modern era.

If it hasn’t become obvious by now, I’m all for keeping Hallowe’en where it is. If anything needs to change, perhaps getting rid of trick-or-treat is the answer. After all, I’m not the only one who’s been buzzed on Hallowe’en candy since August!

Traditions 2.0

Before Christmas, one of our local radio curmudgeons did a bit about the importance of tradition. During the holidays in particular, we treasure the rituals that make us feel safe and secure in a world getting nuttier with every headline. Many of our rituals come with us from childhood, and new ones develop as we establish our own homes and families. For me, it’s alcohol and TV shows. I don’t drink so much at any other time of year, and it’s not Christmas until we’ve watched Charlie Brown.

Even at the office, we have seasonal traditions. On the day the fireplace went up, one of my colleagues paused when she saw it, broke into a grin, and announced, “It’s official! Christmas is here!”

It seems Ter and I have ton of them. The house gets decorated first. I get the cards done and gone by mid-month. The big tree goes up on the first Saturday in December (or the last one in November). We watch Jim Carrey’s Grinch on that night, and every other holiday movie/TV show we have between then and the 23^rd, when A Christmas Story kicks of the holiday hat trick that includes Alistair Sim on the 24^th and Jimmy Stewart on the 25^th. We stock the kitchen with Imperial cheese and garlic sausage, mincemeat tarts and eggnog (and my annual bottle of Prosecco). We visit my folks, friends, and a sibling or two ahead of Christmas Day, not to mention getting presents bought and wrapped for distribution at those visits. Our holiday CDs go on heavy rotation in the house and in the car.

You get the picture.

Well, this year something happened. A bunch of things, actually, that interfered with our nicely organized, pre-scheduled, comfortably familiar holiday hoopla. Some switchups were deliberate, like Ter deciding to bake fruitcake for the first time in a few years, but others were, er, forced upon us. We were too bushed after wrestling with the tree to watch Jim Carrey, so the Grinch got put off for a week. My parents were unavailable when we hoped to visit them, and we were unavailable when my older sister invited us to tea. (Happily, those visits happened after the 25^th, though it felt weird having to reschedule them.) We got hung up on some other oddball things that escape me now, but despite some of our traditions being waylaid by circumstance, other things happened to make holiday magic.

It snowed on Christmas Eve. It started within seconds of my return from dropping Treena home after her ritual holiday visit, and it didn’t stop until the street was thick with frosting and our view of Oak Bay had disappeared. Ter put on the cheeseball Christmas tunes channel, and we sat in a candlelit Ocean Room with wine and popcorn, watching the snow and revelling in the unexpected hygge.

We spent the next morning in the same room, opening our presents in the glow of the penguin tree when our habit is to spend Christmas morning with the big tree. Neighbour noise caused that one, but it worked out in the end. In fact, all the adjustments worked. The OR is my favourite room in the house; why not open our presents there? Visiting parents and siblings after Christmas Day was more relaxed than if we’d crammed it in ahead of the 25th. I survived without my jar of clotted cream and discovered the joy of vanilla and cinnamon Bailey’s. Limited rotation of Christmas music didn’t kill us, though it’s too bad we missed running Blackadder’s Christmas Carol and Nation Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Maybe new traditions were born of the pre-empted old ones; I won’t know until next Christmas. I do know however, that despite the hiccups and with the gift of snow on Christmas Eve, ours in 2017 turned out to be quite festive. Traditions are important, indeed they are, but when conditions are right—though they may seem wrong at the time—traditions can also be improved!

The Day After Christmas

It was fun, but now it’s over. No more shopping, no more wrapping. No more jingle bells. No more Santa runs to friends and family. Holiday movies have been watched and Christmas CDs are back in the rack. No more prezzies to open—the tree now shelters the unmasked goodies bestowed on us by our loved ones. Ter and I are stuffed with December treats and the kitchen is jammed to the rafters with the surplus. We live in such abundance, we are most grateful to be so fortunate.

There is, however, an oddly hollow sense when all is said and done. Sated and exhausted, we awake on December 26 to the perennial question of “Now what?”

Luckily, I have a plan—but that’s tomorrow’s post.

Last night I wondered what the day after the first Christmas was like. If it had been as anti-climactic as the day after every Christmas since.

The answer is a no-brainer, really. What can possibly outdo a heavenly choir and three wise men dropping by with gifts of gold and rare perfume? Like it’s awaited everyone else in all the centuries to follow, real life awaited the little family in Bethlehem. I bet Mary wanted nothing more than a bath and some peace and quiet, but no—she was expected to preside over the festivities. Apparently none of the kings was able to wield any influence with the local innkeepers, so the party stayed in the stable. The next morning, the kings would have departed, the shepherds returned to their fields, and Mary was faced with a newborn son of God unable to articulate his wants and needs, and she a new mother with no experience to guide her. Worse, she had to get back on that donkey for the trip home to Nazareth—bad enough while heavily pregnant, but trickier now that the babe was on the outside. She’d have to nurse him, clothe him, and cuddle him, all the while thinking how nice it was that everyone turned out to praise the birth but didn’t stick around to help with the clean up. Once they got back to Nazareth, they’d have been welcomed home by the community and life would fall into a new routine, and pretty soon the royal visit and Hallelujah chorus would have seemed like she had dreamed it.

No blasphemy is intended here. Whatever happened on that night all those years ago, life went on for the players as sure as it goes for each of us. The baby had a singular destiny, but what baby doesn’t? We are each born of divinity, each on a path designed specifically for the individual, and while few of us will change the world as radically as Jesus did, we will change our little corners of it, hopefully for the better but sometimes not.

I’m a day late, but the sentiment is no less heartfelt: Merry Christmas.

With love,

Merry Christmas to Youbou

We think it’s about the prezzies. We run around like headless barnyard fowl and dig ourselves into debt for things we hope will fix us permanently within people’s hearts, or prove to them how fixed they are in ours, and it’s almost a guarantee that on Christmas morning, if the planets are aligned and you were in psychic tune with the Universe while shopping at the mall, you’ll be a rock star for the moment.

And that’s okay. It happens to everyone and everyone does it. We all have those magical moments when something we’ve always wanted is gifted with love and gratefully received, and vice versa. Once in a while, a gift will stay with you for years, as fondly remembered as the person who gave it to you, though I’m willing to bet the majority of things given and things received can neither be recited nor matched to the proper person before two Christmases have passed.

And that’s okay, too. Tangibles are truly fleeting.

We remember traditions because they happen every year. Traditions, I think, are more important to us than the prezzies; we just don’t realize it.

When Ter and I lived in our gorgeous old Victorian suite, my mother once said it didn’t feel like Christmas until she and Dad came to us for our annual holiday tea. I have to say, we decked those halls in spectacular magazine-spread style, and it was a pleasure for us to host the parents for a visit over seasonal savouries and sweets each December.

One of my most memorable holidays, however, happened the year my parents were unable to come because Mum went down with a hella cold and Dad was on the brink of following suit. At the time, they lived 90 minutes out of town, over the Malahat and left on Highway 18, and it made no sense for them to try and travel all that way for a couple of hours with us, especially when neither of them was in partying health. It was disappointing, but also the wiser course.

On Christmas morning, after we’d opened our presents and had our breakfast and spoken with our loved ones both in town and out, we decided on the spur of the moment to go see Mum and Dad. Why not? It was a beautiful sunny day, we had no other plans, and it bugged us that they were both sick at home on Christmas Day.

So we loaded their gifts into the Camaro, blasted up the ’Hat and turned left on Highway 18. One of the things I loved about Jules was how he proved the theory of time slowing as speed increases. I swear, the faster he went, the slower the scenery seemed to flow past the window, and in top gear, he was all but airborne along that stretch of asphalt.

Right off Hwy 18, with the forest closing in on a twisty-turny road, Porky Pig’s rendition of “Blue Christmas” came on the r-r-r-radio. Between laughing and singing along, we arrived at the parents’ place in seemingly record time. Dad was so surprised to see us at the front door that he forgot to feign dismay. We ambushed Mum in her sickbed (she drew the covers to her eyes and ordered us from the room before we caught what was catching), then sat with my father in the living room until, unable to keep herself in isolation, Mum joined us for a cup of tea and a present exchange.

I don’t remember what we talked about or for how long we stayed, but I do remember the joy I felt at surprising them that Christmas. It was one of the happiest holidays of my adult life.

And though I don’t recall what we gave them, I’m pretty sure my prezzie was a bottle of Bailey’s.

Great Big Tree

It always takes a full Saturday. We break for lunch and laundry, but from start to finish, putting up the big tree takes between six and eight hours. It depends on how fussy we are about stringing the lights and draping the beads—this year, the lights took about an hour, the beads about half, but getting the star in place and securing Bart the Bear in his perch brought us perilously close to losing our minds completely.

Okay, maybe that steamed eggnog for breakfast was stupid, but fatigue is definitely a factor. Once again, fitting the holidays into a hectic work life will be a challenge; no matter how early we begin, it’s always a mad dash to December 25 … or at least until we start our Christmas vacation.

Enough whining. Back to the point.

Ter and I have built a significant collection of cool ornaments over the years. It’s so significant that we often forget the ones most recently acquired until we pull them from their bubble wrap. Then eyes go wide and one of us will gasp, “I forgot about that!” before some frantic rearranging happens to make frontal space for the shiny new(ish) piece. I’m still unaccustomed to the typewriter Nic sent me two years ago, but I anticipate my talking Hoops and Yoyo from our last year at Rockland because it’s had time to set in my memory. I’d also forgotten the Lannister lion that Ter stuffed into my sock in 2014, and the jester stocking she bought the year before—you’d think that three trees would be enough to hold everything we have, but a Bean tree to handle all the trinkets from Nicole may be on the horizon. I realized with a pleasant start that she and I have been shipping things from coast to coast for almost twenty years, so it looks like this friendship is in it for the long haul.

Then there are the “WTF?” ornaments – Darth Vader and James T. Kirk, Captain Jack Sparrow and Daffy Duck, wizards and rock stars, unicorns and stilettos mix among church bells and sleigh bells and snowmen galore, you name it, the big tree has it. We’ve got winter solstice covered, too: stars and moons and polar bears, and the resident foodie’s fruit collection to represent the season’s bounty. Every branch tells a story from our history, collective and individual—the ornament Ter contributed to her third grade class tree is present, as is the circa-1967 ornament that I pinched from the Greig family tree when I left home. The big tree has it all, including its own guardian: Grizz, the bear who hibernates from January to November and stands guard throughout December.

He worried me a bit, yesterday, though. After welcoming him from his nap, I told him that Moon Pie is eager to see him again and, rather than being pleased, he looked bewildered. “Who is Moon Pie?” he asked.

My heart broke for the puffball, who was at that moment telling his buddies that he’d be hanging with the Grizz tonight. How could he not know Moon Pie????

Dismay rendered me speechless, so Ter took over and the gods be thanked for it. When she explained about the baby polar bear, the light went on. “Oh, the little white guy! Yeah, I know him!”

What a relief, but a larger question resulted from that exchange. We have names for every bear … but what do they call each other?

The Tree Bears

It’s a ratty little tree, but the bears love it.

Every Christmas, Ter and I struggle to recall how a string of fifty lights the previous year was enough to light up a two-footer when we need six feet of beads to effect the appropriately effortless drape. Answer: string the lights in a zigzag pattern from top to bottom instead of winding them around the circumference.

It helps that this tree is missing a lower branch. The “tannenbum”, as it’s called, faces the corner, so all that really needs decorating is the part that can be seen. Fifty lights will do the trick if you’re crafty about it, and Ter is an expert light-stringer.

The second of our three Christmas trees to go up each year, this one is known as the little bears’ tree because most of the ornaments are—you guessed it—bears. Crystal clear bears, coloured glass bears, tiny polar bears, and painted wood bears dominate, though a few other critters adorn its scrawny branches. Red and silver balls shine in the shadowed spaces, and we always hang one or two on the very lowest branch because Burl likes to look at his reflection. He thinks it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen.

The smallest bears vie for seats in the wicker sleigh. Last year, Elliot decided to hog the leopard chaise by reclining like a glamour queen atop its black velvet cushion. That won’t hold this year; as soon as the gang saw their tree on Sunday night, there was a stampede to see who reached the settee first. Now we have a schedule to give everyone a turn.

The big bears don’t care so much, being too large to fit comfortably (or at all) either in the sleigh or on the settee; and though Moon Pie sits in during the day, he sleeps with Bobo and Jarkko in my TV watching chair at night. Once the big tree goes up and Grizz comes out of hibernation for the holidays, Moonie might stick with him in the living room. They’re buddies from the puffball’s first Christmas with us, and the annual reunion is a joy to behold.

We let the gang sleep around the tree (lights out, both literally and figuratively) on the first night, but they won’t get to do it again until Christmas Eve. Honestly, you’ve got to have some rules.

Naughty Santa and Captain Underpants

Decorating for Christmas is almost as much fun as Christmas itself. Pulling the Rubbermaid bins from the closet and unwrapping the crumpled tissue within can unleash a joy that obliterates anything imagined by the Big Eastern Syndicate.

The best part is reconnecting with the memories. Almost every item in our holiday collection inspires laughter and a gleeful, “Do you remember …?”

Case in point: Naughty Santa and Captain Underpants. Photos printed off the internet and slipped into frames from the dollar store, it just ain’t Christmas without them.

Truly, I don’t recall exactly when Naughty Santa was conceived, though the shot of John Taylor wearing a Santa hat and tilting that eyebrow the way only he can was a goofball sock stuffer, one of those off-the-cuff trinkets designed to get a giggle on Christmas morning. I put it together for Ter near the end of our tenure at Rockland, and while she loved it on sight, she retaliated with a vengeance a few years later.

2011 was the worst Christmas of my entire life. What had begun as a fresh start in a new residence had blown up three months into our lease and suddenly our treasured Yuletide celebration became an ordeal to be endured. We did the best we could, but by the morning of December 25, we were going through the motions. The only gift I remember from that darkest of holidays was the helpless laughter that erupted when I ripped off the wrapping to reveal a photo of my hormonal hockey crush, posing proudly in his Calvins. I screamed, I laughed, I cried, and I will love Ter forever for giving me that moment of unbridled joy when I had thought I’d never laugh again.

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

O, Tannen-gone

Though October has barely begun, my holidays have been approved and Ter and I have roughed out a plan to avoid the Christmas crunch in December by getting a few things done in November, instead of waiting until the tree goes up to get into the spirit.

I was thinking about our tree, which led to thoughts on other trees, which recalled the memory of seeing the corpse of one lying abandoned on the sidewalk after last Christmas. It had been a live tree, once festooned with more than the few stubborn strands of tinsel clinging tenaciously to the crispy brown branches, the revered centerpiece to a joyous celebration of light, kinship and goodwill toward men.

And then its moment was over, its purpose served, its presence suddenly inconvenient—so it finds itself tossed out with the garbage. Worse, without the garbage, as if it had never known warmth and comfort in the bosom of its adoptive family.

I wanted to cry.

Then I wondered what happened to Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, the one that Linus said just needed a little love. Was that sad, spindly twig shown love and made beautiful only to be stripped and cast cruelly aside when the season was over?

No, I say!

That tree was planted in the Browns’ back yard. Charlie and his family tended it for years, until it grew tall and strong in a testament to the healing power of love, and Charlie’s kids were told the tale of how their dad rescued an orphaned sprig to see it now as a majestic addition to the family’s back-forty.

Then I remembered that it wasn’t actually a living tree—it had been cut and nailed to its rickety little criss-cross stand—so I got depressed all over again.

It’s not good to think overmuch.

Mince Tarts

Neither of us can say exactly when it started, but my wee sister has baked mince tarts for me every Christmas since … I think before she had her kids. The badgering starts in November.

Me: “I’m getting tarts, right?”

She (rolling eyes and sighing): “Yeeeees.”

“ ’Cause I don’t care about getting anything else.”

Heavier, dare I say beleagured, sigh. “Yeeeees.”

She has asked why it matters so much, but I’m unable to tell her. I use the pastry as an excuse. Light, flaky, crispy in all the right places. Yum. She always looks puzzled and says, “I just follow the recipe,” sounding hopeful that if I try it, I might quit bugging her and make the darned things myself.

I have tried and I haven’t quit and so the annual tradition continues. Gods bless her, despite chronic pain, scrambling to do Christmas for her own family, and working fulltime to December 24, she always manages to get the tarts done. Last year, she shoved the snowflake tin at me and growled, “Here’re your freakin’ tarts.” To which I replied with a gleeful squeal, clutching the tin to my chest, “Thanks, kid!”

This November (or is it last November?), I reluctantly let her off the hook. Gluten-free means no more light flaky crispy pastry, so when the inevitable Christmas prep talk came up, I thought she’d be relieved to hear that she was no longer obliged to bake for me. I wasn’t wholly sure, but she seemed disappointed. We talked a bit more about the diet and she wondered if it might help relieve her inflammation, then we let the matter go.

On December 19, while standing in line at the coffee shop, she told me that Mum and Dad would do her prezzie drop this year, as they were coming to my place for tea on Christmas Eve. I nodded and said I’d figured as much, given time constraints and whatnot. Then she said, “Oh, and I baked your mince tarts.”

I stared at her. “What? How?”

“Gluten-free pastry mix. They look like hell, but they’re tart-shaped. You say it’s about the pastry, so I don’t know if they’ll be any good …”

I would have thrown myself into her arms and burst into overwhelmed tears, but our family doesn’t operate that way. I kept my cool (I hope) instead, joking, “I can always pour custard on them.”

Custard being the ubiquitous fix for any substandard sweet.

When the tin arrived with the parents on Christmas Eve, yep, it was heavy as an Olympic dumbbell weight and the contents were indeed tart-shaped, but they didn’t look as bad as she had described. I did my usual thing and waited until teatime on Christmas Day before sampling one. The crust was crumbly rather than flaky, more a short crust than a pie crust. It held up under fork pressure and the mincemeat was as thick and sticky and spicy and delicious as always. The custard was just a nice addition, not a covert necessity. In fact, this year’s tarts taste better than in all the years previous.

Know why?

She didn’t have to do it, but she did it anyway. She found a way to bake me my Christmas mince tarts. She knows it’s not about pastry, or even about tradition. It’s about love.

Thanks, wee ’un.

The Memory Tree

A friend once referred to our Christmas tree as “a f***ing soap opera tree”. He spoke in awe and with some envy, as by then our tree had evolved from a fake Scotch pine with bottle-brush branches (say that three times fast) to a stately fake blue spruce laden with ornaments fit for the set of a daytime drama. Our collection grew in earnest after 1991, when Ter brought home two new ornaments and another holiday tradition was born.

The tradition has fallen by the wayside of late, mostly because the tree ain’t getting any bigger and the ornaments were getting out of hand, but I’m okay with that. I look fondly on every decoration because, for most of them, a memory is attached.

Like the Heineken beer mat from the pub where some work friends and I had Christmas drinks. Or the silly snowmen that came in east coast Christmas packages from Nicole. Jules’ bells and jingle bells. A blown glass angel from my wee sister and a sparkly handmade pine cone from a good friend. We have a ton of Tiggers, a couple Captains (Jack Sparrow and James T Kirk), some Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeers and a collection of oldies culled from our family trees when we were kids. The unicorn from a craft fair; the shiny grapes Ter loved as a child; the sun, the moon and lots of stars just because we like them. I look at our tree and see more than a set designer’s finest hour. I look at our tree and see history. Good times. Loved ones. I don’t recall what ornament came in which year anymore, but it doesn’t matter. The tree connects me to my past and gives me a memory for the future. Forward, backward or sitting in the moment, no matter which way I look, the view is a pretty one.