Classic Christmas Stories (10 page)

by Otto Tucker

C
HRISTMAS HAS ITS MAGIC. Even the commercial onslaughts
on its traditional celebrations and customs fail to remove the magic which
memories provide us at Christmas time. Shortly after mid-December my soul is
filled with excitement, and with a peace that passes all understanding. Some
atavistic force possesses me and spiritually prepares me for Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day. I have always been like that. Perhaps those feelings are
hereditary, or perhaps conditioned by those pleasant childhood Christmas days
and nights in Winterton where I absorbed the local stories and took part in the
Christmas practices and celebrations brought to Newfoundlanders by our ancestors
from the West Country of England. Anyway I always expect something special and
exciting to happen at Christmas time, casting out whatever despair and gloom
were generated in October and November when I have been reminded a thousand
times that only a few more shopping days remain before Christmas, and that with
credit cards, purchases come easy. And a well-cultivated memory in itself can be
a magical force to bring peace, goodwill and joy to the heart as Christmas draws
near.

I go back, as I reflect, to my last year as a school teacher in Newfound
land—to that delightful year at Booth Memorial High in St.
John’s—back to 1960-61. It was a new school with new programs; new Christmas at
Booth stands out because of what was (then an apparently insignificant event) an
experience which registered itself so deeply within me that each year it comes
back as a happy form of Christmas past. I see again those pupils smiling and
singing and greeting each other as they did on that memorable occasion thirty
years ago.

It was one afternoon just before school closed for the Christmas vacation.
Unexpectedly pupils emerged from classrooms, labs and study rooms, and gathered
on the landings, in the corridors and the foyer. One group arranged themselves
on the stairway. It was all an outburst, as far as I could tell, of Christmas
spontaneity.

The stairway group suddenly burst into song: “Joy to the world! The Lord is
come: Let earth receive her King . . .” and here we were, teachers, caretakers,
and pupils standing all over the place and as close together as we could get,
raising our voices in Christmas singing. We sang the old ones—ones that we could
sing without song sheets. Then the stairway choristers sang two new numbers (at
least they were new to me). These words and melodies enchanted me so much that
over the past thirty years whenever I hear those beautiful songs I revert to
being a teacher standing near the baluster of that staircase on Adams Avenue in
St. John’s, and those carols still lift me high above the cares that infest the
day. Over the years these songs become more majestic.

Silver bells! Silver bells!

It’s Christmas time in the city.

Ring-a-ling, hear them ring

Soon it will be Christmas Day.

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks

Dressed in holiday style.

In the air there’s a feeling of Christmas.

Children laughing, people passing,

Meeting smile after smile,

And on every street corner you hear . . .

Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin’?

In the lane, snow is glistenin’.

A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight

Walkin’ in a winter wonderland.

Gone away is the blue bird.

Here to stay is the new bird.

He sings a love song as we roll along

Walkin’ in a winter wonderland.

Later on we’ll conspire

As we dream by the fire

To face unafraid the plans that we made

Walkin’ in a winter wonderland.

Those beautiful voices filled the halls with harmony and our hearts with joy
and with memories to be revived forever.

Near my balustrade, on the pupils’ side, stood a grade eleven girl whose eyes
glistened with joy and whose very smile issued music, let alone her voice, so
that she appeared more like a little messenger from winter wonderland than a
school kid.

From the top landing the bass voices of two or three of the chorister lads
echoed from wall to ceiling, blending with the voices of those in the hallway
below, so that I felt I could be attending a concert featuring Jerome Hines.
Some of those boys with deep voices, like the winter wonderland messenger and
some of the others, have in one way or another made singing music a profound
part of their lives. No wonder, considering the experiences which produced that
spontaneous outpouring of the Christmas spirit!

Those “wonderful” kids—every single one of them, as their teachers affirmed,
over and over, made that year at the new Booth High School a happy one. Also an
excellent professional spirit prevailed among the teachers. For my part I knew
it would likely be my last year school teaching in Newfoundland. I had other
plans. Perhaps that fact contributed to my
psychological
readiness for that little Christmas surprise and some other delightful surprises
at Booth that year.

For three years following Booth I was school principal in Aklavik and Fort
McPherson in the Mackenzie Delta of the Canadian Northwest Territories, and
found that Northern Christmases engendered as much festive joy as those in
Newfoundland. Ancient native customs along with those brought in from the south
combined to create a certain Northern mystique.

Around the yuletide season, there, as here, I found that M. D. Babcock’s
beautiful hymn took on a peaceful tone of Christmas assurance:

This is my Father’s world;

And to my listening ears

All nature sings, and round me rings

The music of the spheres.

This is my Father’s world;

I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, of skies, and seas,

His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world;

The birds their carols raise;

The morning light, the lily white,

Declare their Maker’s praise.

There is the far North “all nature” produced Christmas signs in sounds and
sights, in feelings and fantasies that made one believe that God was again
appearing in miraculous form like He did when Jesus was born. Night-time lasted
practically twenty-four hours a day, with a dull twilight in late morning and
early afternoon. The sun at Christmas time never appeared above the horizon. The
stars when the sky was clear were huge crystal balls of sparkling silver. The
moon when full was a massive glowing golden orb resting just above the snow
frozen Delta. Its rays seemed to enchant the villages leaving long silent hours
for peaceful slumber. There were electric lights, but they were dull and sparse,
and they, along with the tiny lights glowing from candles and oil lamps, were
absorbed by moonbeams. Northern lights without warning
softly hissing and hovering over us and coming from outer space, frequently
bathed the villages in multi-coloured Christmas splendour. Colours they were in
the bitterly frosty atmosphere which no neon lights could imitate.

The powerful Richardson Mountains—an extension of the mighty Rockies—reflected
their winter majesty in immeasurable power and glory when viewed in the midday
twilight, or in the moonlight, or in their translucent beauty magnified by the
aurora borealis. The mood of Christmas time came from natural surroundings: and
natives moving along their traplines, hunting in the foothills or in the
mountain ravines, as well as those of us moving around in the village were all
deeply aware that Christmas was indeed a season for celebration. So wherever we
were, tiny earth creatures protected by the towering mountains in a variety of
ways, we prepared to commemorate the birth of the Christ-child.

One night, a few of us far from home and relatives, joined in outdoor singing
with a little group who always lived there and whose oriental ancestors had one
time travelled afar and crossed the lofty Richardson peaks and settled in the
Delta. There we were with the thermometer dipping to forty-odd degrees below
zero—standing in the still, still night with big, big snowflakes softly falling,
as we sang all those traditional Christmas numbers—and our voices carried those
carols far beyond the village out into the forest and the tundra and mingled
with the moaning and howling cries of the sled dogs steadily pulling the hunters
and trappers towards the village for Christmas. And in the darkness the sound of
harness bells from dog teams not too far away created a distinctive Northern
Christmas atmosphere.

I recall someone saying “What carol is it that refers to the ‘mountains in
reply’?” And almost as if a magic wand were waved we spontaneously broke
into:

Angels we have heard on high

Gently singing o’er the plain

And the mountains in reply

Echoing their joyous strain.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo . . .

That night we knew that God was with us revealing Himself in
nature. We also knew that the North Pole was not far away and that Santa was
there ready to visit us. And our little boy shared in the awe and wonder of the
Yuletide mystery by questioning us about the distance from the peaks to the Pole
and whether Santa’s reindeer were related to the reindeer of the nearby reindeer
reserve called Reindeer Station. And at that age faith overcomes mountains of
doubt and fear.

Our response to the glory which we felt in the natural surroundings was to
partake of the feasting, visiting, singing, dancing and worship which were part
of the traditional celebrations from the earliest days of village life. Aklavik
and Fort McPherson each had a population of about 450 people, made up of
Loucheux (i.e. Kutchin Indian), Eskimo, Metis and a tiny group of whites. In
those days the native peoples were not classified by names acquired in recent
times.

Aklavik’s celebrations involved delightful dramatic drum dances, a form of
pantomimes of some age-old tribal customs and practices. The music made up of
humming and chanting reminded me of that which older Newfoundlanders called chin
music. The drums were skilfully made from caribou or seal skins and stretched
around carefully treated bent willow sticks.

Dances (especially those at Fort McPherson and organized under Indian auspices)
included folk and square dancing accompanied by fiddle music—introduced they say
by early Hudson’s Bay traders, and perhaps modified by early Indian dance
forms.

A big feature of Christmas of Fort McPherson was the coming of
Santa to distribute gifts to all the village kids. One Christmas as the
whole community had just gathered at the hall for this big event, a plane
brought the Anglican bishop to the community. As I approached the hall I saw
people leaving going toward the Church. I met one little boy with a downcast
look who said “Mr. Tucker, the arse is gone right out of Christmas. Santa’s gone
to Holy Communion.” But a little waiting and a little patience brought it all
together.

Our last Christmas in the North was particularly joyous because just before the
festive season, our younger son was born. He was conceived by my wife Ruby, me
and the Holy Spirit in the very early springtime, just as the sun had reappeared
to give us a little midday daylight. It was all planned in accordance with
airline rules and policy governing the flight into Edmonton of a mother great
with child. Also it synchronized with freeze-up when airplane pontoons were
replaced by skis: to coincide with the period when planes could safely leave and
enter the village and land on the ice. We were able to send the message to our
friends and relatives in Newfoundland: “Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son
is given . . .”