Holiday Magic

This year's Christmas photo

Barbara: It’s Christmas Eve Day and I am comfortably ensconced in my Christmas cozies with my family around me, ready to enjoy much food, laughter, camaraderie, (possibly some libations ;) ), and even some prezzies. It will be a celebration that marks Christmas for my family, but as far as celebrations go also shares a lot with any number of non-Christmas and non-Christian festivities enjoyed by people around the world. It is a coming-together of nearest and dearest, which can (under most circumstances and with the right mind-set) kindle a sense of abounding love and wonder and magic.

The other day, in honour of the season, I hosted one of my favourite holiday parties. Over the years we’ve had to pare down our annual Christmas party. Our house just isn’t big enough for large numbers. At first, we were sad to do it, but now we revel in the party that’s taken the big one’s place: our closest friends and their children (who are all around the same ages as our own kids) come over for chili and we squeeze into our living room and sing carols while Phil and our friend Pierre jam on guitars, Stefanie plays the piano, and several tambourines and shakers are passed around and abused flourished.

Deb and Luke at our party

It is fantastic. No, truly, it is FANTASTIC. Music is indeed a balm like no other, even for those of us with no musical talent (never mind voices like strangled cats––and I speak only of myself on that one).

While we jammed the other night, we ran through a gamut of songs, from overtly religious carols, to odes to winter, to pop songs about love and friendship. When we found ourselves singing John Lennon’s Imagine, it wasn’t hard in that moment to imagine a future world full of love and universal support. And when we got to “Imagine there’s … no religion”, someone called out, “Well, then we wouldn’t have Christmas!” True, technically speaking. But even Christmas was appropriated from a Pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice. So we may not always agree on what to or why we celebrate, but we will obviously always agree that we need and want to celebrate. And we also seem to agree on how we want to celebrate: taking some time off, gathering together, and sharing love, goodwill, food, and music.


Tonight, my family and I are going to dress up in our finery and we’re going to enjoy our traditional Christmas Eve dinner: soup and cold fishes and meats and cheeses. Then we clear the table and Santa comes—yes, on Christmas Eve, when it’s dark and candles and flickering lights abound. And the next morning, we sleep in until the kids come to our bed and the four of us take turns opening our stocking stuffers, where we’ve each got twelve items representing the twelve days of Christmas. The rest of Christmas day, we loll and play games and at dinner we eat turkey with all the trimmings. Can you see why it’s a favourite celebration?!

I’d love to hear how you celebrate your favourite festivity.

Merry Festivities to everyone everywhere!!

Deb: Our Christmas starts with a 30-year-old tradition: a friends-lunch and martini’s downtown. Over the years it has gone from multiple martoonies to one each. Ahh, the passage of time, huh? We then go to my Mom and Dad’s dressed in our best bib-and-tucker for a 60-year tradition, their annual drop in. The numbers have diminished and we host it now at their home, but it remains one of the great traditions from my childhood. It calls back a time when my family was just them and brings it right up to the present! It is an evening of many homemade hors d’oeuvres, cheeses, wine and scotch. Then we come home, put the stockings in place and fall asleep excitedly with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.

Christmas morning begins with the arrival of Mom and Dad at 9am. We have chocolate croissants, tea and coffee, and open our stockings. Then we dive into the gifts and, at the end of all that, usually noonish, we sit down to a formal breakfast complete with blueberry pancakes, eggs to order, bacon, sausage toast, tea and coffee. The breakfast table is all silver and I use my 200-year-old tea set for the table centre, filling the polished pots with fresh greens.

After this we settle in for Christmas movies, my Dad and I enjoying mid-movie naps. My husband starts the bird cooking as he flips through his new books. We all relax through the day with baked brie, fruit, rum and eggnog and Christmas baking. My brother and his family and another friend of ours who does not have family arrive around 5 and we have our big Christmas dinner at the red and green table. Those of you who have followed our blog may recall that setting a table is one of my great pleasures in life (see: The Cooking Club). Our Christmas china beams up at us, thrilled to be featured on this very special day. We laugh and eat and bask in the glow of traditions old and new. At the end of this most glorious of days, we fall into a long winters nap, and linger just a second before sleep to count our blessings.

PS Deb and Barbara will be back on New Year’s Eve Day—that’s one week, from now, folks. If you’re enjoying the holidays and catching up on some blog reading, may we recommend any of the wonderful blogs that our blog-friends write, or some oldies but goodies from our own list. Like:

Weather Vane

In Sickness and In Health 

Am I Getting Used To Death?

Apron Strings