REMEMBERING
A LONG AGO CHRISTMAS BY Anita
Birt
Christmas and I go a long way a back. Back to when I was a child
in London, Ontario. Long before television. Long before air travel became
common. Back to a time when only wealthy people travelled very far. Ordinary
folk in cold Canada stayed home to tend the furnace. My parents banked up the
coals at night to keep heat coursing through the house.
We greeted winter and the first snowfall with joy. In London
there was lots of snow and ice. No salting trucks spoiled our fun. Few cars
dared the snowy streets. We kids made great long icy slides on the sidewalks.
After a long run we’d land feet first on the ice and balancing like acrobats
fly joyfully to the end.
Sometimes a crotchety old dame spread ashes on our slide. A
sacrilege, never forgotten. On summer nights we’d ring her doorbell and run.
My mother was Scottish. Her mother lived with us. Two Scots in
one house meant two Christmases for my brother and me. In Scotland, Christmas
was more of a religious holiday. New Year’s Eve, Hogmanay, was the time to
whoop it up. On Christmas Eve, we hung up our stockings as lovely pine scent
from the freshly cut Christmas tree filled the house.
Harry, my brother, was eighteen months younger than I was. We
were like twins, doing everything together. We managed to get into lots of
trouble. My sister, Helen Edna, five years older, ignored us when she could.
One special Christmas Harry and I wakened at 4:30 am. It was
pitch dark. We crept downstairs and turned on the living room light. Under the
tree were our stockings stuffed with goodies. Unwrapped and shiny new, with my
name on them - a pair of skates! I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Harry
had a new sled. I had to try on my skates. He had to try his sled.
Dressing to face a freezing dark winter morning in those days
was not a quick and easy task. No natty snowsuits. First I had to put on long
underwear, then a liberty bodice with suspenders. I had to wriggle into long
ribbed cotton stockings and snap them to the liberty bodice.
Imagine if you will, trying to keep my long underwear tight
around my ankles with one hand and peeling my stockings up over the underwear
with the other. Girls in my day had strong characters. We learned patience and
gained strength struggling against the gods who invented long underwear and
cotton stockings.
Finally with my underwear rumpled under my stockings (I was in a
hurry) I pulled on a sweater and a warm skirt. Harry was lucky he had woolen britches
to wear over his long underwear. Girls did not wear pants as they do now)
I dragged on thick socks, headed for the back door and laced up
my skates. Stars shone like diamonds in the still dark sky. Harry belly flopped
on his sled and whizzed down the icy driveway. I skated after him, falling
twice into snowbanks.
It was heaven. New skates. No present ever meant as much to me
as my new skates. My first real skates.
On New Year’s Eve we hung up our stockings again, only this time
at the end of our beds not at the downstairs fireplace. When we wakened to
welcome a New Year our stockings lay bulging and enticing at the foot of our
beds. They were filled with small toys, an orange and a bag of nuts.
It was a precious time to be a child.
Copyright 2013 Anita Birt
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