Walking for the first time in down town Vancouver, happened to be around the Christmas period for me.
What made it special, was seeing Christmas carolers, dressed in costumes of days of old .
They were just like my Christmas cards I had tucked away for safe keeping, treasured memories of days gone by,
when people used to go to ice rinks and live in small towns with small churches and horse drawn carriages.
Looking at these cards allowed me to dream about how pleasant, kind and nice life could be.
It reminded me of days in Montreal on St Catherine Street when all three of our biggest stores,
Simpsons, Eatons and The Hudsons Bay Co.behaved like a big family,
filling their windows full of wonderful winter scenes, elves, trains, Christmas trees and boxes and boxes of presents.
Those windows were always packed with people, who just couldn’t get enough of these displays.
I was one of them.
In Vancouver, suddenly, snow flakes began falling on quiet empty streets because families
were all at home enjoying a few days of long awaited rest.
I was a visitor, far away from home, looking for the hotel with the “big green roof” to have my Christmas meal in.lol
It was a lonely time of year for me that year but inside the hotel, the buffet was great and the people seemed to be quietly enjoying it.
During the week of my visit, I frequented many an establishment and saw people singing carols in many different ways.
They turned them into rock and roll and today into rap.
It seems that every generation has a love and a use for them.
Our heritage traditions are unique and they are what makes this country a special place to live.
Christmas is just as important as the Thanksgiving Turkey on our table.
Granted, some people just don’t care about holidays or celebrations of any kind.. They sit like Uncle Scrooges and Grinches complaining,
feeling they are doing this country a favor by getting rid of the past, which reminds people of colonialism, emperialism and the world wars.
They seem to think that by getting rid of all the memories, people will heal and have nothing more to gripe about.
There has never been a day in history where people didn’t complain and there never will be.
Some just live to complain.
Historians believe we cannot run away from our past.
We can learn from it, celebrate it, understand it, share it,
try not to repeat it but it is never healthy to keep it hidden in a closet
like it never happened, because it did.
Some people may not like Carolers or Christmas or the Bible but like it or not, this country was built on these institutions
and they are things all Canadians have, to be proud of.
These are things I will tell my grand children about and they will tell theirs and one day
maybe they will become just stories to remember written in some musty history book.
One day some one will pick up a book of Legends and read it and say Hey! Now there’s an idea.
Lets do a Carolers Day or a Christmas Day because it brought peace and joy and comfort to a lot of families and while
we’re at it maybe the idea of FAMILY should be revived as well and Thanks giving.
Now why do you think they got rid of all these things? They’d ask.
Because……………. Good things …………….never die.
Brenda Lee Rockin Around the Christmas Tree.
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