Happy Turkey Day had by All

Thanksgiving weekend this year gave me a much needed semi-rest. It seems like I started running at the beginning of the school year, and I haven’t stopped since. It has been nutso. However this weekend I refused to do any school work. And even though every free moment was taken up with cleaning, baking and cooking I still feel like I had a bit of a break.

My sister, her boyfriend and family friend came to stay with us a few days. I like having people over for holidays and special occasions, it makes the house feel more like a home. We did the usual Thanksgiving traditions: we ate, and we drank, and then we ate and drank some more. Before we passed out into a turkey coma we decided to have a few games of cards. There is nothing quite like a game of 120s or Asshole to get the blood pumping. A few oaths were sworn- but all in all most of us came out without scars. I wish we could all get together and do it more often.

What did you all do for the Thanksgiving weekend?

Christmas is in its box

Well it is all over for another year. Christmas is back in its box slumbering until next year. The halls have been undecked, all the trim is put away, and the tree has been tossed to the curb. The only things I have left of the Christmas accoutrement are the two flaccid Poinsettias dying in my living room. It is kind of depressing.

Don and I have only purchased a real tree for Christmas the past two years. The first two years we lived here we lived in a junior one bedroom at the corner of Bloor and Jarvis. There was barely enough room in that apartment for a couch and a bed, so we could hardly get a tree. Real or not. We had a Christmas plant though. I think it was a rubber tree; we decorated it with a bit of garland. Come to think of it, that was sort of depressing too.

For our Christmases in Whitby we bought a small fake tree decorated it with Star Wars ornaments and snowflakes. We tried to keep the cat away from it. However, we woke up one morning to find the Wicket perched in the tree with Yoda in his mouth. He growled at us when we tried to take the ornament away from him and clung to the branches when we tried to wrench him from the tree. This became a tradition every year actually. Wicket would scale the tree and claim a new ornament as his own. After 6 years of an 11 pound cat scaling the PVC tree it no longer had the classic Christmas tree shape. It was still somewhat triangular but the center section had a gaping hole in it that bowed quite a bit. When we moved to the new house the fake tree did not come with us.

For our first Christmas in the new house we decided that a real tree was in order. We made a day of it, Don, Wilson, my sister and I went to a tree farm to cut our own tree and discovered it was a fun way to spend an afternoon. Don was too sick to do the cut-your-own this time around so we went to Sheridan Nurseries instead. They stored the trees in an outdoor greenhouse but they did something I had never seen before- and when I compare it to the lively experience at the tree farm, this was downright creepy.

All the trees were hanging. Hanging from a rope wrapped around the greenhouse rafters.

It was like stepping into a forest of suicides.

All of them hanging there, swaying in the soft breeze, oozing sap and dropping needles. I wanted to take them all home; save them from this dismal end. Alas, we left with one Fir tree, the one that looked like he had the most to live for. We brought him home, shoved a tree stand up his ass, rammed a snowflake on his head and light him up with LED lights. He was beautiful! He had a good life as a Christmas tree.

And now he is on the curb, pondering the end that awaits us all – the chipper.



P.S. Anyone have any advice on how to keep a Poinsettia alive?

Christmas on Thanksgiving

As many of you know, I live far away from my family. We are all spread out, with the bulk of the clan living in different parts of Newfoundland, and everyone else is spread out all over Canada. The only relatives I have here in Ontario are my Uncle Brendan and his family in Oshawa, and my sister Serena in Kingston. It makes holiday times kind of lonely. While all family gatherings that I miss are difficult, missing Christmas in Newfoundland damn near kills me. I spend much of the holiday in a bit of a funk, prone to spontaneous bouts of weeping. Even Christmas commercials get to me.

You may be wondering why I am talking about Christmas so early this year, and the answer is that I had my Christmas this past Thanksgiving weekend. The plan was that my parents were going to fly up and my sister was going to drive in from Kingston to spend the long holiday weekend together. I was really looking forward to the holiday- even if only half my family could come.

However, my mom is a bit of a sleeveen. Unbeknownst to me, she had arranged for the entire family to be together. Mom, Dad and my brother Cas all flew in to Toronto together, and my little sister Cassandra flew in the next day. It was the first time we were all together in 3 years. It was wonderful.

We spent the time playing cards, spoiling my son Wilson (he is the only grandchild), laughing and teasing each other, and eating. We were all together, enjoying each other, we were busy making memories; in short, it was Christmas for me. Who knows, maybe, with a little luck, we can make this a new tradition for the family.

Thanks Mom, Merry Christmas.

Pan Cake Day Traditions

We had friends over yesterday for pancakes, as it was Shrove Tuesday. Because the friends who came over were mainlanders we did not put any money in our pancakes; we did not want any trips to emergency.

It is a tradition in Newfoundland to put money or other trinkets into pancake batter. My Aunt told me once that each trinket was symbolic of the future. As a kid, I always wanted the money and that is usually what we got, but as kids my Aunts and Uncles might have received:

• A penny, to symbolize tight times ahead
• A nickel, to symbolize money coming to you in the future
• A string, to symbolize becoming a fisherman if a boy got the string, if a girl did she would marry a fisherman.
• A ring, to symbolize that you would marry soon
• A button, to symbolize that you would never marry
• A nail, to symbolize that you would soon pass away (well yeah, if there are nails in your food I can see how that might happen)

Does anyone still do this? What sorts of things did you get in your pancakes as a kid? Did anyone get any money in their pancakes yesterday?

Autumn traditions in Newfoundland.

I love autumn. I love the cool days and crisp nights; the changing leaves that swirl in the wind whispering their way through the sky. Of course this fall has had none of that. Jeeze, it has been hot as balls these past few weeks. Feels like we may just skip fall and dive head long into winter- though at the rate we are going, it looks like it will be a green one.

Aside from the weather cliches, I love autumn because of all the traditions that go with it. Many of my favorites begin at harvest time, it has become and annual tradition for my husband and I to pick apples at Archibald's Orchard , and pick up a nice fruit wine for Thanksgiving at the same time. We also head on over to Pingles Farm to pick our pumpkin for Halloween- and deck the house out so it looks like a tribute to Vincent Price. And now it is something we do with our son.

Many of the autumn season's customs are historically related. Although there was no Thanksgiving Day holiday in Newfoundland Pre-Confederation, many people celebrated it as part Harvest and it included Halloween. The whole season of Halloween is a little different back home on the Rock. There are at least a half-dozen Halloween-related customs that are unique to Newfoundland, though their roots, like our ancestors, reach back to other places. We just made them our own.

For example, the few days before Halloween and sometimes after it used to be called Mischief Week. Old Newfoundland's children traditionally believed that there are certain kinds of mischief allowed at that time: stuffing sods in chimneys, soaping windows, taking pins from gate hinges, and so on. It in no way resembles the Devils night insanity that sometimes goes on across Canada and the US. Mischief week was just harmless little pranks.

In Trinity Bay North, many people participated in Torch Night, when young men would carry torches around the community in a parade. Torches were made from just about anything: from old boots soaked in fish oil, or barrels of kindling, even old dried-up tar mops; in fact the name Tar Mop Night was used in the White Bay area. And come on, is there anywhere else on the planet that still celebrates Gay Fawkes night besides the UK and Newfoundland?

I miss all that kind of stuff now. Not just because that the weather here in Ontario is all off, but that deep rooted sense of tradition and community is so lacking here. Cripes, some neighborhoods and apartment buildings don’t even allow Halloween. It is kind of sad really. And we are losing it back home too, slowly but surely. I don’t think Tar Mop Night has been seen in about 60 years or more now.

I know some traditions die out for practical reasons- imagine Guy Fawkes night downtown Toronto! The police would show up in Riot gear. Seriously, we need to sit down and look at all those wonderful traditions we had for so many years, and really give some thought to preserving them. If not in practice, definitely with photos and stories: our own recording of our history. These traditions are what make us unique, they are an essential part of that constant internal pull of the island: they draw us together as one. And that my friends, is a beautiful thing.