Some of our fondest memories are formed from time spent with family and friends during the holidays, and Christmas is often, a favourite time of year for nostalgic reminiscence.
Whether it’s baking or cooking treasured dishes or treats, or family traditions passed on from generation to generation, singing certain carols or doing particular activities together, there’s something about the holiday season that evokes some of our most special recollections.
The Peace Arch News visited some seniors at Chartwell Crescent Gardens retirement community in South Surrey to get a glimpse into some of their more distinct memories of Christmases long ago.
An English Christmas in the countryside
Some of June Koster’s earliest memories are from the cozy Christmases spent in the English countryside, when she and her family shared their time together in a “little thatch cottage.”
Koster, now 92, recalled that there was no hydro or running water in the house – water came from a pump in the yard.
She remembers she and her younger brother and sister would put out actual stockings – “we always used one of Dad’s socks” – the night before Christmas, and Christmas Eve was also when the Christmas tree went up.
“Mom and Dad would put it up on Christmas Eve, and it had little real wax candles on it,” she remembered.
“I remember making paper chains for decorations,” she said, adding those and the tree were the only decorations.
Then, on Christmas morning, they would open their stockings, now filled with presents, which they of course, believed Santa Claus – or Father Christmas – had brought.
“There was always an orange, an apple, a few nuts and then a few things from Woolworth’s… usually a colouring book and some crayons, a few other things, and then there would always be one big item. For the girls, when we were young, it was usually a doll.”
The close-knit family enjoyed their time together opening gifts and then sat down to enjoy their Christmas dinner, which was served at lunchtime, as the main meal of the day.
“We’d never heard of turkey. We’d have stuffed rabbit – my Dad taught taught me how to skin a rabbit when I was probably seven years old, I remember him showing me where the heart and the kidneys were,” she said.
“I remember my Mom putting the stuffing in, then stitching (the rabbit) up… then it was cooked in a wood-burning stove.”
After the meal, their Dad would enjoy a nap, and when he woke up, Koster and her siblings would climb up onto his lap to comb his hair – he would let them do whatever they wanted with his curly locks – and play, and enjoy the afternoon.
She also recalled a New Year’s Eve tradition they observed each year.
“You had to have a lump of coal to bring you luck.”
Celebrating Christmas in the Philippines
For Corozon Suarez, 90, who grew up in the Philippines, there was never snow for Christmas.
Their location meant it was always, much too warm for the cold, fluffy white stuff.
But they still loved singing Christmas carols, influenced by the Americans, she said, noting the Philippines have Spanish, American and even Japanese influence because of the country’s history, before it became an independent republic in 1946.
“In our family, we were influenced by Americans,” she said, remembering how they learned English and all the Christmas carols popular with Americans.
She and her family were Catholic, she noted, as are many Filipinos, and she remembered going to midnight mass at the church 12 days before Christmas every year.
Children would often sing in the choir and read Bible verses, she recalled.
They would have pine trees for Christmas trees, and hang paper lanterns in the windows as decorations as well.
When it was time for Christmas dinner, it as always a big family gathering, with grandparents and relatives bringing gifts and presents for the grandchildren and younger relatives.
“All of the extended family would come – we would roast a pig, the whole pig, on a spit,” she said.
As well as the roast pig, called lechon, there were plenty of side dishes and yummy sweet treats, such as kalamy, a dessert made from sweet rice and coconut milk, and plenty cookies, cakes and other delicious concoctions.
“At nighttime, even without snow, we’d sometimes go (Christmas) carolling.”
Christmas in January, Ukrainian-style
For Mike, who turns 89 in December, and Lesia Muzylowski, 89, Christmas when they were younger meant celebrating the holidays Ukrainian-style in Winnipeg with their family and extended Ukrainian family and friends each January.
Ukrainian Christmas Eve is usually on Jan. 6, with Christmas Day following on Jan. 7, the couple explained.
“There are 12 traditional dishes we serve on Christmas Eve, which are also meatless,” Lesia said.
“Family and extended family would gather and enjoy these dishes together.”
Such dishes included kutia, a porridge made from unground wheat, barley, rice or oats, with the addition of sweet ingredients like honey, jam or dried fruits.
Another was borscht, a beet soup often accompanied by dumplings, and of course, pyrogy (perogies), both savoury (potato and cheese) and sweet (fruit), a fish dish (salmon in Manitoba, but could be herring or white fish too), holubtsi – cabbage rolls – as well as a mushroom gravy, poppyseed rolls and more.
“We would always start with kutia. Then borscht,” Mike remembered.
“We had a Christmas tree with real candles. It never burnt down.”
Everyone would again, gather on Christmas Day, to exchange gifts and to feast some more, but no longer meatless: turkey, sausage and more perogies would often, be on table, along with many other mouth-watering dishes.
Children always got an orange, usually a gift like a doll or a colouring book with crayons, and boxes of Cracker Jacks were also popular.
“I remember getting an orange (for the first time) and it tasted so good,” Mike said.
He also remembered how the uncles always made moonshine and shared it over the holidays, and taught him how to make it as well.
There was also one really memorable present one year – because his birthday was in December, he would often receive ‘combined’ birthday and Christmas gifts – and, as he was listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio, he heard his own name come over the airwaves as a voice told him to look behind the sofa.
“And there, behind the sofa, was a Lone Ranger guitar! Just before my birthday, too,” he said.
“I learned how to play it in one day. My fingers were all bloody.”
Three-generation Jamaican Christmas tradition
Sharon Clayton grew up all over Canada with her family, as her father was in the military and they moved a lot.
Now 78, she shared the story of a family heirloom – and dessert tradition – that has lasted for three generations in the family (so far).
“Of the few family heirlooms I inherited from my mother’s Jamaican family, a round, metal steaming pan, 22 inches in diameter, is the most important,” she said.
“Although it’s stained and battered, it’s a treasure to me because it once belonged to my beloved Jamaican grandmother, who used it to steam her Christmas puddings,” she said, recalling fond memories of her mother soaking the fruit, measuring the ingredients and mixing the huge bowl of batter.
The pan was part of Christmas preparations every Christmas for the family, who arrived in Canada from Jamaica in 1945, Clayton said, remembering she was a pre-teen when she started paying attention to how the pudding all came together each year.
“Each November, Mom filled a large, air-tight glass jar dried fruit that she immersed in Jamaican rum. The jar would be frequently opened and stirred for several weeks, to ensure that every piece of fruit was swollen,” she said, noting that her grandmother used port in place of rum, but, as her mother always used rum, that’s how Clayton has continued to make it each holiday season.
She recounted the entire baking process and the ingredients used, saying that “by the time the rum-soaked fruit was gently folded into the batter, our large, stainless steel mixing bowl was nearly full.”
Finally, the batter was spooned into the pudding pan… it took some manual dexterity to cover the pan with its snugly fitting lid, she said, and once the lid was in place, the steaming pan would be placed in boiling water, which was replenished several times during the three hours it took to steam it.
She remembers marrying her husband, Bill, in 1967, and her grandmother using the steamed pudding recipe to make their three-tier wedding cake.
“On our wedding day, I noticed the cake’s white icing had been partially discoloured by rum, seeping out from under the marzipan and icing. It was only while preparing for our 50th wedding anniversary party the I wondered if an overabundance of fondant roses had been added to the cake decorating scheme, in a vain attempt to hide all those rum stains,” she said with a smile.
At their wedding reception, a guest, beaming a wide, happy smile, told them, “That was the best cake I ever drank!”
Clayton said she plans to pass on the pan and recipe, stained with rum, to her daughters and grandchildren.
“I hope that at least one of them will pass it along, with this story, to future generations.”