15 hours Ago
When we blended our families through marriage more than 20 years ago, we had four kids and multiple homes and parents to try to negotiate through the holiday season. We proposed that we take all four kids for our celebration on Christmas Eve. We worked hard to mix the families’ traditions and add some new ones.
After many years, we still have a big dinner (now we all bring a dish), a reading that relates to the meaning of Christmas, we open presents and then play some board games. The kids are all adults now with their own partners and children, which makes the celebration even more special. By far it’s our favourite day of the year to spend with our family.
We are so blessed and proud of the hard work it has taken to create such a loving family, and the Christmas Eve celebration is the memory we all hold most dear. Louise Taylor and Hal Hirte, Burlington I’m no match for Martha Stewart. I couldn’t turn a cloth napkin into a tabletop Tannenbaum if my life depended on it.
And who even has time for that during holiday season? But Stewart, whose website shows 13 different ways to fold a napkin , would have you flush even more precious minutes down the drain by starching and ironing them first. The maven in mealtime magic maintains that beautifully folded napkins “set the scene for a meal to remember.” Turns out there’s another way to create an unforgettable meal.
I call it my culinary misadventure. I’ll state upfront that I take pride in laying out a decent holiday feast, even if guests have to make do with unfolded utilitarian squares from a bulk package of no-name paper “serviettes.” Back to the meat of the matter: A few years back I decided to elevate the main event by cooking an organic free-run turkey for visiting family members.
I took the supplier’s suggestions to brine it, cook the stuffing separately and change the oven temperature during the cooking process. He promised my Mennonite-raised bird would win rave reviews. But even with a to-do and when-to-do-it list, this unfamiliar technique meant a lot to keep track of.
So, I cleverly pre-cooked a vegetable medley to reheat in the microwave. Ditto the mashed potatoes. And the baby carrots roasted themselves as I tended to the bird.
But when it came time to carve it, something seemed amiss. For a healthy, well-fed gobbler, it was awfully scrawny. I managed to cut enough slices to cover part of the platter and filled the rest with potatoes and neglected carrots, which had turned into wrinkled orange toothpicks.
So skimpy was the spread, no one dared ask for seconds. But the mystery of the missing meat became clear as I scavenged the carcass after the meal. I flipped the bird and there was the plump, moist breast meat, untouched.
Flustered by meal preps and distracted by my visitors’ early arrival, I had put it in the pan upside down. I’d also forgotten about the bowl of vegetables still in the microwave, uneaten. At least my guests had overstuffed doggy bags to take home.
No doubt Martha has ways to make those too. Carola Vyhnak, Quinte West Paul Statham followed in his father’s footsteps and performs as Santa at corporate events, children’s parties, and personal home visits. My father was a radio personality when I was a youngster (I am now 72).
Among his other duties at the radio station CFJR in Brockville was on-air Santa. He did a nightly show and read the letters children sent to the North Pole via the radio station. I was glued to the radio every night truly believing I was listening to the one and only Santa Claus.
I was seven or eight years old when, one night at dinner I announced I wanted an air gun for Christmas. I pointed out that I was not asking for a BB gun. I knew I was too young for a BB gun.
I thought it was very responsible of me to note that. My father suggested I write Santa with my request. Sure enough, a couple of days later I was listening to the Santa show, when he announced he had received a letter from little Paul Statham.
He read my letter and I was over the moon. But his next words brought me back to Earth with a resounding thud. “Well Paul, I think you are a little too young for an air gun.
” That night at dinner, I stated quite forcefully that “Santa was a jerk. He thinks I meant a BB gun. He doesn’t even know the difference.
” My dad just smiled. I never did get that air gun. A year or maybe three years later I found out Santa was my dad.
That was an eye opener. My dad was a great Santa and I followed in his footsteps. For more than 40 years I have been performing as the jolly old St.
Nick for corporate events, children’s parties, and personal home visits. Paul Statham, Waterdown, ON I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas. You see, I was born on Christmas Eve.
My first lasting Christmas memory came after dinner on my birthday when I was 6-years-old. I can’t remember if there was a birthday cake — holidays in our home were recognized but generally not as full-on festive occasions — but a present was usually made available. I asked about my birthday present, and my father said, “Choose one of your Christmas gifts from under the tree!” His response haunted me for years and led to my harbouring those mixed feelings about Christmas.
Peter Pinch, Toronto Virginia Van Vliet’s Christmas tree has become an album of her family’s history. For our first Christmas in Toronto in 1976, my husband and I bought a small Scotch pine and decorated it with red and silver balls and red lights. Very 1970s, but not my idea of a real Christmas tree.
My grandfather was German and when I was growing up, we always had a large tree with a variety of ornaments collected over the years. How, I wondered, could we quickly amass such a collection? Our solution was to host a yearly Christmas party, asking each guest to bring something for the tree. We also began giving each other ornaments in our stockings.
Our Christmas tree has become an album of our family’s history. As we hang the decorations, I can watch our daughter grow from the Baby’s First Christmas carriage, through her passions for Big Bird, the Muppets, dinosaurs, ballet, Roman history and designer shoes right up to her current job as a librarian. Other ornaments remind me of friends who knitted or crocheted or embroidered beautiful items or thought of us while travelling and bought us ornaments from around the world.
Still others remind me of friends who are no longer with us but remembered on our tree. It takes us a whole day to decorate the tree, but it is worth it for the memories it brings. Virginia Van Vliet, Toronto.
