A candle glows in a copper (cannon, mortar) shell casing from the First World War. My husband’s great uncle brought it back and we are using it as a doorstop.
Lest we forget.
I could not see the eclipse of the moon last night. Too cloudy.
Too bad, the full moon had been visible the night before in all its golden glory. Yes, golden, not silver.
But I got up anyway and played some Celtic music from the satelite tv and lit some candles – and read out this Pagan solstice chant I found on the Net and thought about the meaning of the things like holly and ivy and tree lights (the stars?) and the tree itself, (female fertility symbol with gifts beneath the ‘eggs’).
And then I started to think about other more prosaic things, like How do I cook a Goose? Maybe I’ll use a recipe from Marion Nicholson’s Fanny Farmer Cookbook. Or maybe I’ll go online.
And I thought about all those Britishers stranded at Dorval I saw on the news because of the mess at UK airports. They are going to miss Christmas and have to spend it at, ugh, the Holiday Inn Pointe Claire or something.
I know little about how the Nicholsons spent Christmas because they were at home together, so no letters describing what they did were written.
The store accounts reveal Margaret baked traditional fare, because she bought condiments like cinnamon and candied orange peels.
Well, that’s what Christmas is all about: tradition, so no surprise there.
I have purchased two tourtieres for Christmas Eve, even though my family seldom celebrated the French Reveillon. We didn’t go to Midnight Mass. And even back then I had trouble staying up late.
I would ask to, and my parents would say “Sure” and then I’d fall asleep by 8 pm.
And then with my own kids, well, Christmas was just a hectic, even hysterical time.
“Why do you HATE Christmas?” my husband always asks. I didn’t know I did.
So this year, with my mother dead two years, and my kids grown up and coming only for short visits, I decide to do the French Canadian thing, without the church.
I find it kind of hypocritical to go to church one day a year, for ‘the atmosphere,’ but that’s just me.
I’d love to go see the Montreal Jubilation Choir though.
That reminds me, on Christmas it’s nice to remember old friends. An old friend of mine, Gary Jewell, died a few years ago, too early. He was a comedy writer and actor in the style of Rowan Atkinson.
A few minutes before the funeral was to start, his sister asked me to go with her to talk to the Minister. The Minister needed some info about Gary so he could speak of him.
The Minister asked me, sheepishly, “Is it alright to mention God?” It was a classic comedy moment, worthy of Atkinson’s best lines. I knew Gary would have appreciated it.
Before my Mom died, she said she didn’t want a religious funeral. So I performed a little ceremony at her grave (without asking a rent-a-minister)… We read out e.e. cummings’ I AM A LITTLE CHURCH poem.
I couldn’t think of any poem my mother liked especially, so I picked a favourite of mine. And I buried her with a pack of cards, for she liked to play bridge (taking out the Queen of Spades) because she also liked to play Hearts.
Last night I also took out Norman Nicholson’s Masonic sword. It’s a tacky, mass produced thing, but I noticed it has engravings of two knights jousting and three tall men (wise men?) and lots of other symbols, too.
Norman didn’t feel his ceremonial sword was tacky. The story of how Norman’s sword got to me is rather mystical. A few months after I mounted the website, a person who had it suddenly decided to check out where it came from and she was able to track me down from the picture.
The first page of my website http://www.tighsolas.ca/ has a picture of him posing proudly in his Masonic Regalia, (which cost a small fortune from what I can see from his expense book).
Anyway, after Gary’s funeral I asked his sister if I could have a copy of one or two of his songs (he was also a song writer.) She said they had all been lost.
Then a few months later, I was cleaning out my very very messy garage and found a box of old tapes. Gary had given them to me, saying “Maybe your kids would like to play around with them.”
They had no interest in the tapes, as kids like the newest technology, not the old stuff.
But I checked what was on them and the tapes contained his serious songs and his portfolio of advertisements and other radio material, like hourly IDs, from CHOM where he had worked! TABLOID TRASH intros too.
Then a few months after that I was cleaning out a cupboard I found yet another tape he had made for me, of his funny songs. His Bob Dylan doing the Flinstones theme is legendary among his friends.
See, you don’t have to be religious to realize there’s more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy, to believe that magic exists.
