Holiday Recollections

Written by my daughter, Cora, and based on her childhood memories.

(Edited ever so slightly by LJ)


Rowan and Darby sat cuddled together on the large recliner facing the fire place, watching the dancing flames and fighting to stay awake a little while longer. Not an easy feat after having over-indulged at Jayson and Riley’s home only a short time ago.

Music played softy from the stereo, fairy lights merrily twinkled behind them and their opened gifts sat on display beneath the branches of the tree as another Christmas day drew to a close.

“Tell me about your family Christmases again, Rowan,” Darby quietly requested, turning in his lover’s arms to gaze beseechingly at the other man.

“You ask that every year, Sweets. I’d think you’d be tired of hearing it repeated so often.” Rowan dropped a kiss on the red curls nestled just below his chin.

“Never!” Darby adamantly declared. He smiled as he settled comfortably against the bigger man’s chest, confident his wish would be granted. Regardless of being able to tell the story himself, Darby loved listening to his husband’s deep voice as the wonderful memories from his childhood surfaced to be retold again and again. “There’s always a little something new each time; some small recollection that you forgot to mention in the past.”

“Of course, like most families, it started weeks before Christmas,” Rowan began. “Celebrating Thanksgiving in October is great for many different reasons, but there are a couple of good ones that stand out in my mind. One, you get to have turkey for both holidays without feeling like you’ve been eating turkey for a solid month. Two, there is a definite division of the two holidays, allowing Thanksgiving to be its own special event, then Halloween, then the beginning of Christmas season with shopping, decorating, baking, etc. So Christmas doesn’t feel quite as harried and crazy as what I imagine it may feel in our neighbouring country to the south where it seems to encroach on Thanksgiving weekend with Black Friday being the start of what is such a special time of year.”

Darby merely nodded his understanding of that statement.

“Towards the end of November, the holiday would begin with my parents starting to pull out the decorations. Boy, did they decorate the house! Lights outside on all the eaves and around the windows; wreaths on doors, garland crisscrossing on the ceilings, hanging from the mantle and over every doorway, even intertwined through the rungs of the staircase and spiraling down the banister. On each bedroom door was a decorative stocking or two that my mother had made each of us when we were really young. They were felt, each one its’ own masterpiece. I think Trevor had reindeers on his, Kayla had snowflakes, I had nutcrackers, Logan had a tree with ornaments, and Erin had a Santa. At the top of each stocking was our name, written in glittery gold liquid embroidery. Hmm… do you remember liquid embroidery?” Rowan chuckled when Darby shook his head.

“Well, these were the decorations that always stood out in my mind. Christmas was in the air when you had a felt and liquid-embroidered stocking on the doorway to your personal sanctuary known as your bedroom. Then of course, there were the nativity scenes and little Christmas village scenes that had been set up on different surfaces throughout the house. I always liked these little figurines that you could only look at, but not play with, as you had to set an example for the younger ones. You can’t just be running off with Jesus in the manger, just ‘cause you want to.

The holiday baking would begin as well. I remember coming home from school every afternoon and the house smelling like Christmas because my mom had been baking all day. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much of the treats until Christmas Eve, except for eating them during one of the events that may have been going on for church; the Christmas pageant, family pot-luck meal, or something like that. Remembering how many baked goods were made, I know that most of them ended up going out as gifts or care packages to other families. The rest were frozen or left in the ‘back room’ which was the storage room connected to the house on the other side of the back porch. That room didn’t have heat, so it stayed pretty darn cold in the winter and was suitable for storing large quantities of food without it going bad. I believe there may have been a few years where some of the treats were secretly broken into before Christmas, but my Mom had pretty tight reins in that department.

The tree would go up a couple of weeks before Christmas; sometimes it was real, sometimes it was artificial. I think it really depended on what the time restraints were on the family and the weather conditions of the season that determined whether we got a real one or stuck with the artificial one. Either way, we had some wonderful ornaments. There was a lot of glass ones, which have always been my favorite.

Christmas carols were played on the stereo starting on December 1st. We always had music playing in our house, or were singing if there was no music on. Mom and Dad taught us to respect the stereo and the record albums like they taught us to respect books. Even when we were little, when most parents would probably freak out by grubby little hands dealing with the diamond tipped record player arm against their precious vinyl records, my parents taught us how to put a new album on, how to handle it by the edges so it didn’t get scratched, how to line up the needle on the smooth groove-less line between songs, so we could listen to our favorites on each album. They had all the great ones - Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Elvis Presley, and my mom’s favorite, Bobby Vinton. And the albums playing made us comfortable with singing every song, so that we were pretty relaxed singing in front of a group at church or going to the nursing homes to sing for the old folks.

Then on Christmas Eve, my mother would finally make a tray of some of the baked goods, and we would gather in the living room. We would all get to open one gift, which my parents had designated as Christmas Eve gifts. It was always a new pair of pajamas for the boys and a nightgown for the girls, often lovingly sewn by my mother, to wear that night and a coloring book and crayons which kept us occupied for the evening. As we got older, the coloring book and crayons were replaced with an actual book, so we hung out together as a family, singing carols, coloring or reading, eating goodies. And then there was always rabbit pie; a most delicious tradition, I must say.

I remember it always feeling calm and peaceful on Christmas Eve as we were perfectly content just hanging out as a family. We wouldn’t stay up too late because Santa wouldn’t come until we were all asleep; and that meant not just faking it. We would prepare a plate of snacks and a glass of milk for Santa and head off to bed. But I can imagine that my parents stayed up most of the night, wrapping last minute gifts, preparing dishes for the next day’s meals, and getting five Christmas stockings ready.

If we woke up early in the morning, we always had our stuffed stockings on our beds. This was a ploy of my parents to keep us in our bedrooms until at least daybreak, and it worked. They always had chocolate and candy for us to nibble on so that we weren’t rushing for breakfast, and we had whatever little stocking trinkets to play with, as well as our books from the night before. Finally, our parents would let us get up, but there were chores to be done before gift opening.

There was a door to the living room that stayed closed until everyone was ready to go in, but we had chores to do first. And as we were gonna wait until later in the day to eat our big meal; we needed a decent breakfast to get us through the morning. This process taught us patience, and taught me how to embrace anticipation; so much so that I now enjoy the anticipation of an event as much as the event itself.

As you know, we didn’t live on a farm but on our two acres of land we did raise enough livestock to meet our family’s needs, and they required tending to. So Dad, Trevor and I would go out to milk the cow and the goats, strain the milk and pour it into the separator, gather the eggs, feed the animals, clean up the stalls, and whatever else we did in the barn every morning. Meanwhile, Mom and my older sister, Kayla, would get breakfast ready which usually consisted of a traditional Acadian casserole made with eggs, cheese, and bacon. They’d also get the turkey stuffed and into the oven, set the table, and help the younger children get cleaned up, teeth brushed, hair combed, etc. We would bless our food and wish Jesus happy birthday in our prayers, then eat our breakfast while talking about the Christmas story in the bible.

Finally, we would line up down the hallway, youngest to oldest, before my parents would open the living room door and let us pile in. There were always a few large gifts that were too big to wrap and didn’t fit under the tree; that’s why my parents didn’t let us see into the room before the unveiling. We would each find ‘our spot’ and the younger kids would pass out the presents to each recipient. No one would unwrap any present until everyone had their little pile, and then we would take turns with youngest first, opening one at a time, acknowledging and thanking, and then on to the next kid with their present. We would go round in circles like this, a very steady and civilized process. I’ve insisted on keeping this part of the Kincaide family tradition, so that we can see what each other gets, and can show appreciation to each other, and make it last. In our family, it generally lasted well over an hour, since there were at least seven of us, and sometimes even more with grandparents and foster children during some Christmases.

Not only did we have the presents that our parents got us, and the ones that we made each other, we had a lot of gifts from grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. So it was a lot of gifts! My grandmother, (Dad’s mom), always made socks and mittens for all of us. She had polio when she was a little girl, so her right hand was bent in at the wrist, and she had very limited mobility with it, yet it didn’t slow her down. She was the fastest knitter I have ever seen in my life. The mittens and socks unfortunately, rarely fit the recipient, so we had to trade them around until we were satisfied with the fit, which meant that there were some years when the boys wore pink mittens, until Grandma figured out to keep the colors neutral. She didn’t use patterns, so the thumbs of the mittens were always a little off. Sometimes too far back on the hand or a little tight around the base, but we wore the heck out of them anyway. And dry mittens are dry mittens, so who cares if the thumbs don’t fit properly. The other great thing about her mittens was that she always had the string attached, that you could thread through your sleeves, and you could let the mittens dangle out of your sleeves if you needed your hands for something and didn’t want to have to put your wet mittens in your pockets. That connecting string was oh, so important in a family of five kids, when trying to find a matching pair as you were heading out the door was not always the easiest task.

When we came in from playing in the snow, we would line up our mittens, hats, boots, etc. along the wood stove; in front of it on the floor or on chairs, and if we were keeping watch, we would even place them on top of the wood stove, watching the snow melt off of the mittens and the water droplets dancing across the iron surface. Grandma’s mittens always smelled a little bit different than the store-bought mittens; wet wool, half burning when we didn’t pay close enough attention to the drying process. They didn’t burn up in a melting mess like the polyester store mittens if we left them too long on the heat.”

Although Darby knew the story by heart, he listened attentively in hopes of catching a small variation or two in the sequence of events. “See!” he interrupted. “Burning mitten smell hasn’t been referred to before.” His observation caused Rowan to laugh.

“No more interrupting, please.”

“I’ll try, but no promises.”

“Okay,” Rowan gave in a tad before getting back to his tale. “Even though there were many times in my childhood where I knew money was really tight, my parents always managed to provide an exceptional Christmas for us. Looking back at it, I could see how organized they were; how they must have budgeted throughout the entire year; how they really listened to us when we wrote our wish lists out or our letters to Santa. I don’t remember ever feeling any type of disappointment at Christmas. It has always been an incomparable holiday. It was very much about family togetherness and very much about Christ and church, even though we didn’t actually go to any church services on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. And I really didn’t mind the times that we ended up not having a whole lot during the year or being really restricted with what were beyond the basic necessities, because Mom and Dad always made up for it at Christmas.

After the gift opening, we would tidy up a bit, hang out, play with our toys, and slowly start to putter around in the kitchen, preparing side dishes for our big meal which was usually mid-afternoon. We usually had the missionaries over for dinner. They were young men, some of them away from their families for the first time ever. We had them over a lot on Sundays as well, so we were typically very comfortable with them in the home and I think that they were very comfortable with our family too, even if they weren’t from big families themselves.

Christmas Dinner was always turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, several different vegetables, lots of different kinds of pickles that we had canned a couple of months earlier, and fresh homemade dinner rolls. But we didn’t have anything like sweet potatoes or green bean casserole like I’ve read about. Nor did we have a bunch of pies either. Our traditional dessert was a recipe called ‘Lemon Snow’. It was lemon jello that was whipped while it was half-set and then set the rest of the way so it was very light and foamy. And it had a smooth, sweet, white thin custard-type sauce that covered it, made with cream and vanilla and sugar. It was very light and perfect for huge holiday meals when you wanted something sweet after eating, but were so stuffed that you couldn’t imagine anything heavier than whipped foamy jello.

After dinner and clean-up, it was everyone doing their own thing like playing with toys, listening to music, reading, playing games, going outside to play, or just hanging out and talking or playing chess while Dad played the guitar. We would snack on leftovers, nuts, and baked goods that were no longer off-limits. As the sun went down, we would continue to hang out in the living room, Christmas tree twinkling, candles burning, and just quietly calming down in the soft light.

Of course, we were out of school for the next week, so the Christmas holiday didn’t end on Christmas day. The special spirit of the season dragged on throughout the week and into the New Year. Great memories! The same spirit still continues for me to this day and is why I love this time of year!”

Darby let out a deep sigh of contentment as the well-loved narrative came to an end. Although he’d had enjoyable enough holidays while growing up, his being an only child had often left him feeling lonely. It was why he loved hearing about Rowan’s family and why Rowan’s Christmas memories had now become his own cherished holiday recollections.

The End