We’d wandered to the back of the back-40 last Sunday. Almost nobody was there. A bunch of the grandkids ran around as if it were the last day of school. My younger daughter and I walked in silence, scanning the horizon. She spotted one. I spotted one. Then my grandsons figured they’d found a tree. Eventually, I stopped and surveyed a likely candidate. “What do you think of this one?”
“Sure, Popou,” some of the kids said (calling me the Greek word for granddad).
But I waited for my older daughter’s youngest son to look and pass judgement. He smiled and said, “That’s good.” His mom, who usually decides, couldn’t join us this time, so the final OK fell to him.
“Let the holidays begin!” I said.
Funny how this time of year has so many rituals – sometimes religious practices, often (because we’re fortunate) the foods we prepare, but mostly the habits we share with those closest. Our family is no different, although with two daughters, a few in-laws around, and grandkids all pulling in different directions, there’s a greater variety of ways we all celebrate the holidays.
But going to the tree farm, hunting for the right one, cutting it down and bringing it home to decorate – for me – marks the start of festivities.
Among my first stops – to try to help out this time of year – is the Loaves and Fishes food bank in Uxbridge. Each year, we also listen to The Sounds of the Season show on CBC Radio; it’s the broadcast that kicks off their support of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto. It’s clear that food need has skyrocketed around us. Daily Bread reported a 63 per cent annual increase in just one year.
On the upside, more volunteers have stepped up. Loaves and Fishes here in town has more than 45 people volunteering about 150 hours a month to help put food on the tables of about 125 families.
So, if that’s not been one of your holiday habits, maybe donating this year might just ensure less hunger is the best gift you can bestow.
Part of my annual holiday routine involves catching a few of my favourite movies on the tube. One is Alastair Sim’s A Christmas Carol. But for sure I’ll watch It’s A Wonderful Life. It features one of my favourite screenplay lines, with Jimmy Stewart (as George Bailey) flirting with Donna Reed (as Mary Hatch) as they walk along a street in mythical Bedford Falls.
Eavesdropping on George’s clumsy courtship is a guy on a porch who shouts out in frustration. “Why don’t you just kiss her? Ah, youth! It’s wasted on all the wrong people!”
Perhaps my favourite holiday habit happens tomorrow. It’s a radio moment. This annual ritual involves pouring a glass of eggnog, adding a dash of cinnamon, turning the lights down low and at 6:30 tomorrow evening tuning in CBC Radio’s As It Happens program (99.1 FM).
Each weekday night closest to Dec. 25, since 1979, the show has broadcast a reading by the late Alan Maitland; it’s called The Shepherd, written by Frederick Forsyth, renowned for his thrillers Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War.
The time is Christmas Eve 1957, during the Cold War. A Royal Air Force pilot takes off in his jet fighter from northern Germany to fly home to Suffolk, England, to spend the holidays with loved ones. En route, his Vampire jet suffers a catastrophic electrical failure, knocking out all his radio gear and his compass.
Worse, as he reaches the point of no return over the North Sea, below him the sea and landscape are covered in impenetrable fog. He becomes utterly and totally lost and thinks he’s going to die crashing into the English countryside or the frigid North Sea.
His fate that Christmas Eve is the plot of the story. And if you’ve never listened to it, I guarantee you’ll be hooked and return to it, as I have each year. So, gather the family ’round your radio – for something completely different.
Incidentally, The Shepherd has never appeared in any other form than Forsyth’s novella and the CBC Radio reading … until now. Disney has just released a short feature, called The Shepherd, co-starring Ben Radcliffe and John Travolta.
I’m sure it captures some of the magical imagery that for half a century has been delivered by the short story and the radio reading. But I’ll probably just stick to my eggnog, low lights and theatre of the mind. For me, the mind and the heart are the best places to find the spirit of the season.
Happy holidays to all!