Growing up Christmas was my father’s favourite holiday. Every year we would go to the bush, find a beautiful spruce tree and cut it down, drag it home, and then Roxanne and I would decorate it. Sometimes we would listen to Christmas carols as we added our balls, popcorn string, garland, tinsel, and fake snow. The Christmas carols rarely drowned out Big M’s complaints about “putting up all that shit” in the house. Big M doesn’t like decorations. Roxanne and I always did our best so dad would be happy at Christmas.
One Christmas in particular, I remember working upstairs on Christmas day, coming downstairs after dinner was served to shower and sit around our family dining table for roast beef dinner. I had been cooking lunch with Big M earlier on this particular day and as we listened to CBC radio, several guests recounted their favourite family stories about Christmas. Over dinner, I thought it would be a great idea to ask my parents about their own favourite family traditions when they were younger.
Dad went first and remembered that back in the 1940s, fresh fruit was difficult to find and his highlight one year was getting hand made wooden toys, a new slingshot, wool socks, and a fresh orange! He was ecstatic at finding these treats in his stocking. When it was Big M’s turn, she started to recount her story, only about half way thru I mentioned that I wanted to hear about HER childhood Christmas not the story I had heard earlier on CBC Radio…..and that was the end of our pleasant and civil family Christmas dinner. She started to freak out that I mentioned it wasn’t HER story. I don’t remember the rest… I remember doing the dishes, cleaning up, and then going to my room. Fortunately I really loved being in my bedroom.
Every year Christmas was the same: work, get yelled at, clean, cook, and put the decorations away.
Don’t get me wrong, I know I sound like all I do is complain….but once I turned 13 most of my gifts were for ‘later’ in life. Yes, my sister and I were spoiled by society’s standards; we had everything we could possibly want. We were spoiled with material things: clothes, shoes, magazines, makeup, and all the creature comforts one could want. What I don’t remember is a sincere sign of affection, compassion, or empathy. Even when my father hugged me, after October 1986 I developed breasts, like a normal female and my father stopped hugging me close; he actually told me it was inappropriate for me to hug men because I pressed my breasts against them. Back when I was on speaking terms with my father hugging him was awkward, it involved me putting my arms around his neck while jutting my butt out really far to ensure my breasts never touch him. Ever.
Every year from 13 to 18, many of my Christmas gifts involved crystal glasses, bowls, and tablecloths. One year I got “good” dishes for my “hope chest” à you know, “special occasion dishes”. I guess they were pretty, I wish I had been able to choose my own pattern though. Big surprise: I donated every single thing my parents ever gave me a few years ago. I no longer own ‘dishes that nobody is allowed to use.’ I bought my own ‘style’ for my own house and kicked my parents out of it.
I struggle at Christmas now, I love spoiling my kids and my husband, I love cooking the dinner and making all the desserts for everyone; I admit, I go really crazy with all the traditional French Canadian foods that I love. I spend 2 months preparing desserts and planning the menu for Christmas so that it is special (normal?) for my family and nothing like the Christmas I had as a kid. Every year, Christmas is just ‘work’ for me. It doesn’t mean anything and I understand why it doesn’t so I soldier on so that for MY kids, Christmas is awesome and will be for their future families - but I hate it. I hate everything about it so I avoid calling it “Christmas” – I call it family dinner. In my brain, calling it anything but “Christmas” eliminates any anxiety I have around the holiday. Christmas is the time for me to make all the traditional dishes my mother and her family made over Christmas.
When I was a little older and we realized how shitty Christmas was at home, we started trading off every other year to visit my mother in Québec. I think we had maybe 3 or 4 Christmas and New Years with my French family. Not once, did anyone of my French family members tell me “Christmas isn’t special, it’s just another work day”; only Big M told me that so that I would not feel like a slave when we worked upstairs. Have us work also ensured the “staff” could be home with their families and my parents wouldn’t have to pay double time.
Now THOSE Christmas holidays in Québec were hands down, what I always wanted to have as a grown up. Let me set the stage …
ALL my aunts and uncles and their kids, girlfriends, friends, etc. get together at either my mom’s house or my aunt’s house. Both of these women are amazing cooks. Every year all the good traditional foods are served: cipâte, tourtière du Lac St-Jean, pattes de cochon, cretons, plus the typical turkey, mashed, gravy, veggies, roast beef, sometimes fish, lobster, crab, and ALLLLLLLL the desserts you could imagine. Christmas starts on the 24th and we call this celebration le réveillon. The focus of the réveillon is the food, dancing, drinking, and singing, typically it also involves midnight mass but that’s not something we did in Québec. I remember arriving around 7 or 8pm and then you stuffed your face and stayed up until 5 am. All the kids would just run around, inside/outside, video games, sliding in the pitch dark, carefree. I was truly free here and didn’t have to go to mass. We’d sleep in on Christmas morning then have brunch with the family at the other sister’s house (my mom and aunt shared the hosting duties). Unfortunately, I married into a family that was never interested in the “réveillon” – another reason I don’t care about Christmas, it isn’t even fun for me, at all.
When were in the North with dad and pre-teens, we used to celebrate Christmas with Anna and the girls. Inevitably this stopped because Big M decided she hated going over there and sitting on “Flintstones furniture”. My aunt loves wood furniture, one year she purchased a new dining and bedroom set in a rustic wood style. Big M didn’t approve. Hahahaha like that mattered. I realize now that Big M didn’t like going over for family dinner because she wasn’t the centre of attention and she wasn’t catered to; plus it was a French house and we all spoke English for her benefit.
I feel the need to say: Big M “tried” to learn French for years (so she says) and was never able to. I don’t remember her ever actually trying. I think this was just her way of being lazy, hiding the fact she’s a complete idiot, and not learning French allowed her to control those around her by forcing them to essentially cater to her with speaking English. The North is 60% bilingual French/English. Big M has been living in that shithole for 40 years; you’d think she would have learned more than just “biscuit”. Maybe she should have watched Sesame Street. My mother taught herself an entire language watching it. Big M wouldn’t do that because that’s why my mother did, she’d rather stay ignorant and fret that my mother will one day decide she wants Jack back. That was always my childhood dream but I understand now, why it would never have happened. Big M should have known better too. She was there for the divorce. She heard my father bragging about how he screwed my mother over and how she never had a chance. She heard him laughing at how easy it was to fool the court system back then.
Remember when I said I found the divorce papers and that I have them physically here in my house? Well, I found them when I was 33 and pregnant with my daughter. I noticed that all the statements included in the divorce file had been type written on HIS typewriter. I also noticed that all the witness statements were written using words, cadence, and terminology my father uses. I assume he wrote all their statements and just asked them to sign. I did say he played dirty; he lacks empathy and compassion and I really believe my mother should have won custody. Mostly, at least Jack and Maeve would have been happy together and we would have visited them for 2 weeks a year. What a different life I would have led. I try not to dwell.
Back to Christmas in The North… it sucked.
Just joining me? Start at the beginning:
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