Gilberts: Sharing our Christmas memories |
First off this week, Jim and I are both hoping that your Christmas celebrations were everything that you hoped they would be.
First off this week, Jim and I are both hoping that your Christmas celebrations were everything that you hoped they would be, and that you are continuing to enjoy the holiday season.
Many of you who are longtime readers of this column will remember Jim’s story about a Christmas he had as a boy. He and his brother both got hockey sweaters and they went out to the creek across the road to play hockey early on Christmas morning. It’s a wonderful story and several of you have told Jim it’s one of your favourites.
But I criticized him because he repeated it too many times. It’s a great story but there are others. So I thought we would talk about some of them today.
First off, I will talk about my own childhood. My father was a French-Canadian from Northern Ontario and while we lost most of his traditions, we did celebrate one thing every year and that was a reveillon. When I was very young, of course, I didn’t participate, but when I got older (probably after I no longer believed in Santa) I was allowed to stay up and go to midnight mass.
My mother would stay home........