Posts with the It’s A Wonderful Life tag

Barris Beat

Twelve days of Christmas

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Uxbridge Messiah Singers at Uxbridge Baptist Church, 2022.

About an hour into the concert, we could feel the anticipation. The church fell silent for just a few seconds. Conductor Tom Baker, all 14 musicians in the orchestra and the 80-voices-strong choir seemed to collect themselves for the climax of their performance. The singers rose in unison. Then, so did the audience in rapt attention.

 “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,” the choir began to sing, somewhat muted at first. Then, their voices rising in crescendo, the mass choir filled the sanctuary with the final refrain: “And he shall reign forever and ever. King of kings. Lord of lords. Hallelujah!” (more…)

Barris Beat

Finding the holiday spirit

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Family Christmas tree hunting party. Dec. 17, 2023.

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. (more…)

Barris Beat

Bredin’s Bakery – more missing than the name

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Bredin’s Bakery during Uxbridge’s recent sign-wars campaign.

They had just finished sprucing up the shop. Walls and trim were freshly painted. They’d replaced some shelving and hung a vintage photograph of family ancestor, Greg Bredin’s dad, who’d originated the business. And probably best of all, they’d re-framed and re-hung some of their favourite bakery puns.

“Sorry for being flakey,” one read after they remodelled. “We’ve been procrusti-baking.”

Some of their slogans were also strategically placed around the bakery counters and display cases, including, “Have you tried a Bredin donut? If not, we understand. They sell out within an hour and a half every Saturday.” (more…)

Barris Beat

The sound of a guiding light

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Barbara Frum and Alan Maitland, co-hosts of “As It Happens” on CBC Radio in 1970s.

It was our first winter in Alberta. A few months earlier, I’d abandoned a broadcast position in Saskatoon for some writing opportunities in Edmonton. We’d tried to find a house to buy, but in Alberta, then in the middle of a boom, interest rates were north of 12 per cent. So, we rented a bungalow and settled in – my wife, our two-year-old daughter, and our second infant daughter, barely a month old.

As I remember, it was cold and (on Dec. 24, 1979) dark by 4:30 p.m. Out of habit, because we’re dedicated radio people, Jayne and I turned on CBC Radio for “The World at Six” national newscast and at 6:30 the Monday-night edition of “As It Happens.” And that night for the first time, we heard Barbara Frum’s co-host Alan Maitland launch into a Christmas reading.

“While waiting for control tower to clear me for take-off,” Maitland began, “I glanced out through the cockpit canopy at the German countryside…” (more…)

Barris Beat

Is Christmas relevant?

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"It's Christmas Eve" brought together Alex, the composer, and Quenby and Whitney, the singers and grandchildren, in 2001.
“It’s Christmas Eve” brought together Alex, the composer, and Quenby and Whitney, the singers and grandchildren, in 2001.

A number of Christmases ago, my father Alex called me. He was worried about something. I asked him what was wrong. He said he was facing a dilemma. He had just written a Christmas song and wanted one of our two daughters to record it. Since both were good singers, he didn’t know which to choose.

“Dad, I don’t see a problem,” I said. “They both sing. Why not ask them to record it together? They can sing it in harmony.”

Well, it was one of those times in my life when instinct proved to be bang on. My father approached both our daughters – Quenby, the teacher, and Whitney, the actor/singer – and they agreed to work on it together. (more…)

Barris Beat

It was a wonderful life

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Late on June 6, 1944, Lt. Garth Webb (standing at centre) and his 14th Field Regiment artillery crew paused to reflect on the highs and lows of their D-Day experiences.

The day before the big opening the French police built a security fence around it. Workers set up wooden benches for an audience of 5,000. Rain left the glass and titanium-clad building on the Normandy beach glistening like a polished jewel. And inside the museum itself Canadian army cadets removed the pins from nearly 44,000 poppies – the pinless Remembrance symbols would be dropped from an aircraft during the ceremony – symbolizing the number of Canadians killed in the Second World War.

“I was on this beach 59 years ago,” Garth Webb said during the opening of the Juno Beach Centre on the D-Day anniversary in 2003. “And it’s just as big a thrill to be here today.”

(more…)