Merry Christmas anyway
In search of family and mincemeat this holiday season
I’m from Glace Bay; lived in Halifax, Ontario, Alberta almost half my life. And then we came back to my wife’s territory in Sydney River, where I never know what anybody is talking about at the Christmas table.
The talk is all Sydney, Ashby, the Shipyard, The Meadows, the Pier. Somebody mentions the Bay I light up like a pinball machine they plunked a quarter in. At last! Somebody I know. Number 11! Caledonia! I know everybody! G’head! Toss me a name!
Back to the Shipyard.
I try to engage for the camera. While everyone else is cheerfully mugging for the shot, click! Talking to their neighbours. Pouring gravy on their turkey and mashed potatoes. Dishing out cranberry sauce. Laughing at a joke. Furrowing a brow at some tasty morsel of gossip. Click!
The best I can manage is a plastic smile, like The Mona Lisa if she were to stare at her fork on the table amid these strangers.
Nineteen people in a wee bungalow, usually ... 9.5 who want to be the cook. Though this year we might be talking to ourselves.
We have a galley kitchen about the size of our minivan. But everybody piles in there like clowns in a phone booth, sampling the dressing, which should or shouldn’t be made with potatoes, or summery savory. They’re inspecting the gravy; putting their twist on it. They’re putting on the kettle and setting out the teacups for after the meal. They’re reaching between the gravy makers at the stove for the Pyrex teapot, which they don’t make anymore and if you break it you’re dead. The arm comes in between. No luck. The arm goes over. The teabags go into the empty pot.
Somebody at the sink says,
“At our place, we put the water in first. Ma always made it that way. She never forced her tea.”
“Yeah? We’ll you know where your place is. And while you’re there, see if you have any mincemeat!”
“Mincemeat? Ha! Good luck!”
“All I want is three cups. It’s like not having a Christmas tree!”
The onions are frying nicely in the turkey drippings.
One of the gravy makers slips two Oxo cubes in from his pants pocket.
“Hey!!! I don’t put Oxo cubes in my gravy!!!” “Don’t we know it?”
“I just can’t put too much sodium! The other fella’s heart!”
“Yeah well, there’s 18 of us and one of him!”
A table-setter remarks, “For 43 years I put Oxo cubes in my gravy, but then I found this recipe for chicken pot pie gravy. I always make chicken pot pie gravy now. It’s beautiful.”
“The trick is going slow, adding the stock so the flour doesn’t lump together.”
A voice cries out from the wilderness, “Flour? I use cornstarch!”
Back to the table. “The sad thing is I’ll never get those years back.”
The cat weaves through a forest of legs in the kitchen and sits. Like a pylon. Everybody steps around him. People with pots, people with hot dishes, people with stacked fine china.
Then we sit. If it’s a snowy Christmas somebody talks about a blizzard on Christmas Eve once. Uncle John was driving with Hector Burzynski, coming home with a haddock that was to be stuffed and baked ...”
“Wait. Hector who?” “Hector Burzynski.” “No, it wasn’t Hector Burzynski at all. It was Hector Gillis.”
“No, it wasn’t Hector Burzynski! I should know!”
“His mother was nice. She used to work at The Hat Shop I think it was. She grew up in the Shipyard.”
“Did somebody say they have mincemeat?”
“Mincemeat! Ha! Good luck!”
“We made fatayas at least.” “Still. Christmas without mincemeat. Without fruitcake!
“It’s like having Christmas chicken instead of Christmas turkey.
“It’s like seeing Tiny Tim’s crutches in the corner. What’s next?”
“Don’t ask!”
Merry Christmas anyway. God bless us, everyone!