Gold and Frankincense

Our second Christmas back in Victoria, and the memories from my daughters' early Christmases (to say nothing of my own) feel closer and spookier.

Elder daughter has once again crossed the continent to join us, despite arriving at Hades airport twenty minutes after the check-in dateline. Badly sleep-deprived, she had underestimated the travel time. She was scolded by the first agent, who passed her on to a kindlier agent when she burst into tears. Second agent passed her a box of tissues, and informed her she could still board -- if she sent her suitcase, laden with Christmas gifts, back to her apartment. More tears which sent him ticky-tacking at his computer, and for $75 dollars more, he rebooked her, with suitcase, on a later flight.

I'm beginning to think that airlines abuse their power, rather.

Demeter has secretly transferred the gold chocolate coins for the stockings to me, and this brought back a memory of elder daughter from twenty years ago. Unfortunately, I checked my blog, and I've told this story not once but twice. However, it's a long time since the last retelling, and I'm reasonably sure no one reads this blog but bots nowadays.

Here, slightly adjusted, is how it appeared in my journal of December 1998:

On the last day of school, I bring a Santa Hat for elder daughter to wear home. The schoolyard is full of kids in Santa hats. Elder daughter is so excited, she dashes into a driveway in front of a car, something she's never done before. After a shrill warning, she runs forward again, but stops carefully at each driveway in a semi-squat, looking several times each way. The pom-pom flips back and forth.

She's rather concerned about a few classmates with Santa agnosticism, but doesn't let this interfere with her own belief. Cookies, eggnog, and cheese are left out for the big guy, and she's thrilled to get the craft kit things she has itemized in her letter to Santa. Half awake, I can hear her enthusing about getting pencil sharpeners. She's mildly put out that some stocking-stuffers are from her aunt and uncle - "I don't get it!" - but is delighted to get "frankincense". (The chocolate coins have republique française inscribed on the tin foil.)

Vanishing Christmas

When I was twenty-three, I belonged to a small choir directed by a talented musician and composer. We sang one of his compositions for holiday concerts and services. Being an alto, my part sounded something like this: ♫OOOOOooooh -oooOOOoooh - Ooooooh - we'll remember, we'll remember - OOOOOoooh - Christmas - as it was today, as it was today...♪

As a result, I can't really remember the lyrics, but I do remember the gist of the song, a cataloging of things to do with the modern Christmas.

It occurred to me when I was listing "Christmas essentials" yesterday that there are aspects of my remembered Christmases that are already gone or on their way out. I can think of three offhand:

1. Magical, moving shop window displays. I'm trying to figure out when these vanished; I don't recall seeing any in the nineties. I gather they still do them in New York, but then, they would have the cash, wouldn't they?I don't think there was anything as grand as this on Douglas Street or Jasper Avenue, but there used to be ambitious mechanized Christmas tableaux that appeared in Canadian shop windows the day after Remembrance Day. Now we get sulky, skinny mannequins.

2. Decent Christmas television. Plays, variety shows, concerts. In Canada on Christmas Day, you're pretty well stuck with The Sound of Music (that great summertime Christmas movie complete with Nazis) and White Christmas They've even stopped showing "Christmas at Kings". I see the BBC promos for Christmas Day telly, and sigh heavily.

3. Christmas cards. We still get quite a few of those, but the eternal and infernal so-called "Christmas Letter", with its carefully laundered and impersonal list of familial accomplishments and travelogues, has been gradually transforming our Christmas card strings into something resembling a clothesline. Increasingly, we get the letter as an email attachment which is a sort of improvement in that it can be deleted with one key-tap.

It all comes down to money and time, I suppose. Shop windows need staff to maintain them and someone to fix the moving parts. Shows must be thought up, produced, acted and paid for somehow. And snail-mail? So last century, expensive and labour-intensive.

I'm not really looking forward to explaining to my grandchildren (should I have any - children are so last century and expensive) about shop windows, television and stamps.

Bah humbug

Don't get me wrong, this little flash-mob at Vancouver International Airport has its charms. They even have a live band! However, it has "spin doctor" written all over it. (Our national airline has been struggling with cut-backs, financial crises, strikes, and rather lack-lustre service for years.)

Then we note the date this took place: December 18th, 2010. Oh dear. Were any of those passengers en route over the Atlantic, say, to Heathrow? I think there were thousands of people who didn't even manage to get where they were going. Then, a huge storm hit the eastern US just after Christmas, and those who had made it where they were going had real trouble getting back. It was not the holiday to be flying, unless you were St Nicholas himself. Maybe that's why no one really seems to remember this.