We can all remember how Christmas
was celebrated when we were kids. For most of us it probably revolved around
family.
I remember my father’s family coming
from Lowell to spend Christmas Day with us. I still can’t imagine how Grandpa
and Grandma Milot, Uncle Nap, Uncle Emile, Uncle George, and Aunt Laura all fit
into one car for the 56-mile trip to Manville, our Rhode Island home. But they
came, bringing presents for my brothers, my sister, and me.
One year, Uncle Nap brought a box
with a dozen chicks in it, all of them peeping away at the prospect, I suppose,
of finding a new home. We kept those little yellow balls of fluff warm in their
box between the legs of Mom’s kitchen stove until they began sprouting brown
feathers. We knew then it was time to move them to a corner room upstairs in
the barn, a rather fancy home with windows on two sides and shelves for them to
roost. And later to lay eggs for us kids to fetch every morning.
Uncle George, rotund but not very
tall, was a perfect Santa. When no one was looking, he’d change into his
costume and make a boisterous entrance, to the delight of us kids. Until the
day we began to wonder why Uncle George was never present when Santa appeared.
Then it was time to open our
presents. Mom always had me give Dad a new container of shaving soap for him to
brush on his face every morning while we watched. Some of those years after the
war were rather lean, but finances got better after Dad found a new job in
Providence. I can remember three special Christmas presents: a little red
wagon, an erector set, and an American Flyer model train set. I wasn’t allowed
to touch the train set until Dad and Uncle George had laid out the tracks,
hooked up the transformer, and tested the cars to make sure everything was
working right.
The main course for Christmas dinner
was always a turkey big enough to feed the whole gang. And there was always leftover
“tourtière,” traditional Canadian-style pork pie consumed after midnight mass.
I don’t remember anyone returning to Lowell on an empty stomach.
The little red wagon is long gone,
the erector set sold before a move, and the train set bequeathed to my baby
brother André. But they remain fixed in my memory as icons of Christmas past,
symbols of joyous days that brought family together to give, to receive, and to
share.
The relatives in that carful from
Lowell are all ghosts now. I’m sure they are smiling at us as we cherish the
traditions and values they once passed on to us.
Merry Christmas to families
everywhere.