How to Sing

My father’s family goes quite mad for Christmas, though my father himself doesn’t. The best way to describe their home during the holidays is to say that the whole lit and tinselled season comes into the home, swells like a giant balloon, and explodes, covering every wall and surface. It gets into every corner, takes over every stair... in a homey, inclusive sort of way. There are two Christmas trees up, lights about all the windows. This year there are white rain deer aglow on the front lawn, a red nose blinking defiantly on the nose of Rudolf. Santa shines at the end of the drive. Bears in red hats, angels and children, manifestations of a pantheon of festive spirits (and presumably the Holy Ghost, haunting somewhere), fill the shelves, sit on the steps, blink out from snow heaped, wintery scenes on mantles. The dogs get snowflake kerchiefs. The nog flows easy.



There was a time when I thought this entire set-up some special kind of hell. Maybe a Buddhist vision: materialism gone critical: motorised ornaments whirling, robot Santa’s singing carols in the bathroom, gadgets and tinkling widgets going on; things everywhere tying you down.

This is not transcendence, and it is not about the renewal of human spirit. It’s just about stuff. I know I’m often saying “I like stuff,” but this is unreasonable; quite out of control.

I used to bitterly quip in my head, gripe that no vision of Christ had ever included him bushling candy crucifixes in one arm while doling his wish-lists out to the apostles.

“Don’t worry Judas, I know things are a little tight. Just get me a donkey and some cuttings from a rose bush, that’s all I really want for my birthday.”

I’ve gotten over that. It is my aunt’s favourite time of year, and she waits for it, batedly, during the rest of the calendar, poised to shop and decorate. She has been known to blow a small fortune in four weeks to mark the occasion. In recent years, I’ve learned to take the whole thing in the honest humour it is enjoyed in by my loved ones. I’m not out to ruin Christmas, after all. Not anymore.



In that spirit, I started inviting my friends to the annual sing-a-long that kicks off their celebrations. It really is the event. My dad’s family has been hosting it for thirty two years. It’s survived moves, illness, death. Fifty six people descended upon their newly renovated home this year, into the Christmas chapel. All of these characters are people present in my history. This side of the family represents the greatest of influence on me outside my parents and sister; my grandparents were omnipresent even at a distance, out to spoil and cherish Turtle and me. They were the gift givers and the indulgers, and seeming permanently interested in every twist and turn of our juvenile brains, great to spend time with. With my sister we would constantly regale and pester, “Listen, Grandma!” and “Why?”.

It has been observed that they have been far better grandparents than they ever were parents.

The sing-a-long is the best expression of my father’s family. They are at their best, not because they have to be, but because they are ecstatic to be. When I first invaded with a group of 13, all bearing gifts, smiles and laughter all, my aunt was taken aback. She had very little to say, but the vanguard of the event were there, and my Aunt Dot, my grandmother’s best friend for 72 years, came up and caught my face in her hands.

“I’m so happy someone is taking on the tradition.”

She had tears in her eyes; and so did I.

This year was a bit of a bust for my contribution. Myself, Satan's Little Pixie and Kengee arrived. Late. But I’ve established the commitment. I’ve been calling in my friends by the dozen for six years, and even with the disappointment in the faces of my great-aunt and her friends, I know that the mark is permanent. As black and sheepish as I am, I have been the first of the next generation to take it on, make it something intrinsic for a group outside and alien to my grandparents and their peers; and they asked, all of them, from Aunt Dot to Uncle Bob:

“Where are all the Toronto people that usually come?”

They couldn’t make it this year. All good reasons, all disappointing; but their absence was felt.

When my grandparents were in St. Jean Quebec, the last year they hosted the event before coming to Hamilton, it was one of the biggest snowstorms in municipal history. Snow fell to be measured in feet, not inches. They thought that no one would come, and people trekked to the house in snow shoes.

“I still remember them coming in the door. They looked like snowmen,” my grandmother told me.

Traditions are made from memory, nothing more. I came to this sing-a-long laden with apologies and regrets, that too is part of the history. We can all sing the banns later in life, should we make it that far.

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And to keep the mission statement of this site intact, here are the cookies: jam wheels, nanimo bars, gingerbread, shortbread, chocolate balls, sugar; raspberry thumbs, butter tarts, lemon glazed, and Christmas snap. Cookies are nice.