Celebrating in the far north
The festive season is a time of traditions, but what is it like to live in a remote community, where the celebrations have their own unique character?
Johanna Furey, 38, lives on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, with her husband Paddy, 42, and their three children, Ronan, 10, Orla, six, and Lillian, who’s two. Since October last year, Johanna and her family have owned and run Cross Stores, the village shop and centre of the community of Ness, a settlement of around 2,000 people overlooking the Atlantic Ocean
‘Christmas for us is especially poignant, because it was at this time of year that we first thought about making the life changes that led us here. Before that, Paddy and I had lived in Edinburgh, where we ran two pubs/restaurants and I worked as a nurse. Then at Christmas 2012, Paddy’s sister-in-law Moira passed away after a battle with cancer and it made us realise that life is too short for the way we were living. I’m from Lewis, but had been away from home for 20-odd years, and Paddy’s from County Meath in Ireland. So in 2013 we bought a small house on Lewis, with a view to using it as a holiday home, but soon came to the conclusion that we should make the move permanent. Then the chance to buy Cross Stores came up, as the owners were retiring, and we took it.
It’s an amazing shop that stocks everything from a needle to an anchor, and in the past year we’ve put our own stamp on it, introducing things like fresh take-away meals such as lasagne and quiches made by Paul, a local chef. We also make our own black pudding to a very old recipe, as well as white pudding, fruit pudding, and sausage rolls. We have many orders from the mainland for the famous Ness black pudding – marag in Gaelic.
While we’ve tried to think of everything, Christmas last year was an eye opener when we saw how much people buy! Everyone here cooks from scratch, so they want baking ingredients, suet and sausagemeat for making stuffing, chestnuts, cranberries and duck fat. We had a couple of Christmas shopping nights and everyone came to see what we had and to try new things, including, smoked Cheddar, Christmas brownies and mulled wine.
Cross Stores also includes a huge hardware section, with candles, torches, lamp oil, coal and all sorts of fuel. Bad weather does cause problems with deliveries. The weather can be very, very angry – we call it spectacular – with gale force winds of up to 120mph, and waves crashing wildly. Then flights are cancelled, letters and parcels back up and you get a big bundle of mail on one day. Hector, our postman, battles the elements to make his deliveries. The wind also means that there aren’t many trees
growing on Lewis, so Christmas trees are shipped over. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Christmas became a big thing on the island – it was more customary to celebrate New Year. Some churches, such as the Free Presbyterians, still don’t celebrate the season.
As a family, we try to attend the beautiful candlelit carol service at St Moluag’s, the ancient episcopal church in Ness. At school, instead of a Nativity, the children perform a play on a Christmas theme with songs and acts, partly in English and partly Gaelic, with dancing and traditional bagpipes and fiddles. And our social club puts on a festive week, with a ceilidh band, prize bingo and a quiz as so many people come home for the holiday.
We also have a visit from Father Christmas, who comes to our local hotel, where he plays the accordion between greeting the children. A special treat last year was Santa hanging out of the coastguard helicopter doing tricks!
At our home this Christmas Day there will be us, my mum Donalda, my sister Janice, who lives in Inverness, her partner David and their new baby, Ewen Angus, and my brother Steven from Glasgow, with his dog Harris.
My husband says I’m the biggest Christmas enthusiast he’s ever met. I love helping the children write their letters, and deciding whether they go up the chimney or in the postbox. Ronan and Paddy go together to get the tree, which goes up 12 days before Christmas, no earlier, and is decorated with mainly glass or silver ornaments, some of which came from Canada where my mother lived in the 1950s and ’60s. I’m afraid I don’t let the children help until the end, when the youngest is allowed to place a treasured old angel with a china face – from Jenners department store in Edinburgh – on the top!
When I was little, my mother followed the Canadian tradition of not wrapping gifts.
They were tied up with velvet ribbons, and I do the same, trying to make them look really special and inviting. Having a holly wreath on the front door is a real Irish tradition and I used to make my own, but I now have an artificial one as holly isn’t readily available here. We also always have a festive jigsaw, which lies on the table for anyone who wants to have a go at it.
The children get very excited on Christmas Eve. They leave a mince pie and a dram of whisky for Santa, and a carrot for the reindeer, and love to sleep facing the window so Santa can see them and they can see him.
And then on Christmas Day comes the meal, which we eat at about 4pm. I like to make the table look special with lovely crackers, crystal candleholders and silver napkin rings. Last year we had marinated prawns supplied by a local fisherman, followed by an espresso cup of pea soup with chorizo oil and a Parmesan tuile. Hebridean-smoked salmon on Irish soda bread and filo-wrapped black pudding with chutney are also big favourites. Mum makes a superb stuffing using pinhead oatmeal and our own black pudding, and Paddy made a delicious mint sorbet last year.
For the main course we have traditional roast turkey and an Irish ham joint, which I slow-cook in cider and glaze with honey, brown sugar and cloves. This comes with the usual vegetables and roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, you name it – Hebrideans and Irish love spuds of all types!
We’ll also go for a walk, sometimes to the beach, and then we can sit and enjoy the evening chatting and playing games. I love the smells of Christmas – the cosiness of family gathering around the peat fire. It’s comforting to batten down the hatches and get warm in the hope the power doesn’t go off.
Since we moved to the island, we have become much more settled and know where we’re going. We have all we need on our doorstep, with our family close by. We can be as involved in the community as we like, and have time to spend together as a family. These are the things that really matter.‘