Posts with the The Shepherd tag

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

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

The Twelve Days of Christmas

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Double the Christmas gift.

As I wrote last column, welcoming a baby grandson into the world was truly a gift. That was the First Day of Christmas. On the Second Day of Christmas, I went looking for a gift for my sister. I searched and then I found a photograph, taken of the two of us about 1972. So, I went to a local photo place and the guy said he could duplicate it, but that he didn’t normally adjust for contrast and brightness.

“But in the spirit of the season,” young Michael said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Thoughtful, I’d say. Unexpected gifts are the best. (more…)

Barris Beat

Gifts money can’t buy

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It took my dad far too long to set up his B&H movie camera and light rack, before allowing us near the Christmas tree.

It was a time before cell-phone selfies and video. Heck, it was even before video. Each Dec. 15 morning, our parents wouldn’t allow us into the living room where the tree sat until the time was right. My sister and I had to wait until Dad wound up his Bell & Howell movie camera, and turned on the powerful electrical lights so that the camera would register an image on his 8-millimetre motion picture film.

“OK, I’m rolling,” he would say finally. “You can come in now!”

Whereupon, my sister Kate and I, blinded by the movie lights and unable to see a thing until our eyes adjusted to the bright lights, would stumble into the living room. (more…)

Barris Beat

The Christmas shepherds

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The Shepherd, painting by Lauren Grace O'Malley, courtesy Vintage Wings of Canada
The Shepherd, painting by Lauren Grace O’Malley, courtesy Vintage Wings of Canada

They are the most soothing and at the same time perhaps the most mysterious symbols of Christmas. They appear in carols, in the Bible, in Christmas cards and just about every nativity scene one could imagine. They are seldom quoted, but always acknowledged as trusted and worthy guides to a safe and protected place.

“And there were in the same country,” it says in the Book of Luke, “shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night…” (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…)