8 - FUNERALS ARE FOR DANCING - Chapter 5 - Christmas Memories

         Well, it is that time of year as I write this and I could go all over the map (year-wise) as I am wont to do.  Most people who love me and get the way my brain works must also be very fond of rollercoaster rides.  So, buckle up!

         

The only photos I could find in the-ghost-from-Christmases-past category were of me as a baby and then around age six or seven with my drum majorette doll.  There must be many other shots somewhere in the family, just not with me. 

I remember leggings like these where an elastic ran under your shoe.  I also remember 

boots where we wore our shoes inside.  Do they still make them like that?

At first glance, I thought this was my Barbara Ann Scott doll but, no skates.  
My teeth look a bit odd so I must have been in the loose tooth and losing them years.  

Mum and Dad made Christmas magical for their kids.  Sometimes risking life and limb in the process.  Or, as Mum put it the year (1949ish) I was about five or six, “What are those damn fools doing up there on the roof.  They’ll kill themselves”. 

         

We spent that Christmas in Windsor with our Grannie, our Dad’s mother, Eleanor.  Before we went to bed the three girls … Gina, Jacqueline and Marlene were all lined up on a long footstool in front of the fire at our Auntie Kit and Edie’s house on Lake St. Clair.  We were told to shout our Christmas wish up the chimney, (without scorching our innocent faces on the burning fire) so Santa could hear it. 

         

Apparently, I called up a last-minute request for a doll that threw my parents for a loop.  As it so happened, Grannie had made me a doll, she ... or rather, they, were two dolls in one.  At one end she had peach-coloured flesh and yellow braids.  If you lifted her dress and turned her upside-down her dress changed and she became a whole (well, half actually) different person with dark brown skin and tiny black pigtails all over her head.  Yes, it sometimes bothered me, being the precise person I can be, that neither doll had legs but, aside from that, I loved them to bits, both of them, so much so that as an adult I saw and bought a small version of my now gone favourite childhood doll(s) which I still have on a shelf and often stop by and turn her into that other person.  Were they my first hints at a kind of unity I’d later come to understand better?

         

Meanwhile back at the fools on the roof.  That would have been our Dad and Uncle Bill.  They were up there pretending to be Santa’s reindeer in order to give the three girls the thrill of a lifetime.  Being the youngest at that time, I’d either fallen asleep or don’t remember actually hearing the reindeer but remember the story that became a family legend.  Apparently, they had enjoyed a few too many Christmas Eve celebratory pints.   

         

I clearly do remember all of us skating on Lake St. Clair that special Christmas and the terrible fright when Gina fell through the ice.  Well, it turned out to be one leg only that went into a large crack, but that was enough to build in us a respect for treading on thin ice.

         

Believing in the magic of Santa Claus was a wonderful thing for me and the greatest part was that eventually each of us has the wherewithal to become Santa and pass the magic and generosity along to others.  However, in later years Christmas did lose its magic.  Was it the commercialism, the pressure to try, unsuccessfully, pleasing too many people or just that it was time to let it go?  I don’t know.  I just know in spite of trying for the same magical feeling for my children at this time of year, I think it didn’t happen for them in the same way.  I guess they’ll just have to write their own stories.

We always had to leave the house for 'the visits' on Christmas day.  I guess mostly we were back home for dinner as I don't recall dinners with aunts, uncles and grandparents.  I do remember Mum and Dad putting enormous turkeys into the oven.  Often they stayed up all night, or at least very late, to get those birds dressed and into the oven. 

We often visited graveyards on Christmas to remember those loved ones who were no longer with us and to place a wreath.  That wasn't high on the hit list for us kids so, Mum and Dad called a 'Games Day' for Boxing Day.  We got to play with all our Christmas games and toys for the entire day ... we stayed in our pajamas and ate turkey sandwiches.  The perfect turkey sandwich, by the way, has Miracle Whip spread on one slice of bread with cranberry sauce on the other.  Sausage meat, which was always stuffed into the neck end of Mum's turkeys also goes in, if there is any left.  I'm a white meat person so, plenty of that with lettuce and let us not forget ... Ta-Da ... stuffing.  Mum always made a very moist dressing with plenty of sage, so much sage that the dressing was somewhat green ... but great!  Games Day remains a favourite Christmas memory.  In fact, games were around for us throughout the year.  Mum and Dad often joined in.  We grew up playing games of all sorts.  I later learned how important those games were in helping us learn how to strategize.  It couldn't have hurt to learn to be good losers as well.    

Meanwhile back to the writing of our own stories ... I'd give anything at this age to know more about my parent's and ancestor's lives but, alas, much is gone.  So, for those who wonder why I'd write about my life in personal detail well, let me try to explain. 

I've learned so much from reading about the lives of others, memoirs and biographies being among my favourite reading material.  My life has been fairly eventful, she said holding her breath, and I'm still living through it with a fairly cheerful heart and soul.  I don't observe that in some others I've known so, if I've locked into something that has helped me face life and all it offers by way of tests and difficulties, perhaps others will benefit.  And, if not for that, perhaps my children, who I doubt are reading this 'now', will understand at some point, how life molded me.  It might also help them understand that although I've maintained an overall positive outlook, I'm not without my moments when they too, want and wanted, to clear the room.

                

I married into a family that doesn't hug so, for this particular Christmas I warned my husband's Granny that all I wanted from her was a hug.  I love how happy she looks in this photo.  1975 

1979 - Daughter Emma, not too certain about modeling the Christmas stocking I knit for her.

1981 - Me, Michael, Ben, the Don Mills Santa and Emma.  I was pregnant here with Dana.

Emma & Ben wearing the family's Christmas stockings.  Ben was still waiting for his knitted-by-mummy sock.  I'm guessing 1982. 

This must have been the year the joy of music was instilled in the heart of Ben.  

Wow, a Fisher-Price record player.  

When Emma & Ben wore these outfits people found it hard to believe that, not only were they two years apart in age and not twins but, genetically-speaking, they were not related.

This was in our Port Perry house where we lived from '85-'95.  

Emma's bunny is Eric and even he had to model his Christmas stocking.

There came a time when Ben didn't want "some old guy coming into my room while I'm asleep" so, the stockings were hung in the parent's upstairs bedroom ... with care.  

7 - FUNERALS ARE FOR DANCING - Chapter 4 - Where Did My Creative Bent Come From?

The use of the word 'bent' could apply in different ways here.  

All of my siblings are fairly creative beings.  Perhaps it’s best understood by telling you a bit about the creativity and resourcefulness of our parents. 

When Mum said, “I’ve been thinking”, we knew to clear the room without delay.  Nothing was safe from our mother’s transformative powers.  She could take an aging piece of furniture and give it new life … although it was sometimes a pitiful new little life, one could honestly say, it never looked the same.  Both parents were fine examples of doing-it-yourself.  Their many projects were not always a success, the failures were, however, always good for a laugh. 

Returning my sister, Dale, home after a Christmas shopping trip in the late ’60’s we walked into the kitchen to see Dad with that proud I-did-it look on his face.  He had just papered two walls, one in the kitchen and the other in his living room.  He’d poured himself a drink - Captain Morgan White Rum LCBO #392B - and taken his classic pose at the refrigerator with one elbow up on the corner and his drink sitting atop the cold storage unit … if it wasn’t in his hand ready for the next sip.  He was practically bursting to show us his latest handiwork.  

We sat in the kitchen appreciating what he’d completed (and more than for the fact it was a job completed … do not even ask about my Dad’s, or even my own history, of incomplete projects).  Our youngest brother, Mike, entered the kitchen and quickly noticed a rather large air bubble that he pointed out to our Dad. 

“Psst!” came from Dale accompanied by ‘the look’, warning Mike he was on thin ice pointing out Dad’s errors.  

“It’s okay Porks.”  (Yes, the only one of four girls who never carried extra weight was nicknamed Porks.  I’ve often wondered if I’d been given that pet name if it might have caused more control of my fork.)  “It’s important to get these bubbles out.”  He was up on a chair squishing the air out with a flourish.  Coming down he grabbed for another sip of his drink.  

From Mike, “Dad, there’s another one, quick!”  Again back up on a chair and smoothing the freshly applied wallpaper.  Next, the entire corner of one panel peeled back.  Not at all perturbed Dad jumped up on a chair and smoothed it back with a wet sponge.  It wasn’t until five panels of paper rolled down simultaneously that Dad clued (I resisted saying ‘glued’) into his mistake.  

The paper he’d already proudly hung on one wall of the living room must have been the pre-pasted roll.  He’d bought two rolls at the same time … one pre-pasted and one not.  He’d mixed them up.  Heck, that double-pasted paper may never come down even when it was time to redecorate.  I can’t recall but he may have moved out of that house with that twice-glued paper still clinging to that wall.  

It was the Christmas season so there were many rolls of wrapping paper strewn around.  We simply took the seasonal paper from the rolls and used the emptied rolls to mark and roll up the paper until Dad attacked the job again, this time with the proper paste.

*****  

Our mother loved to change the look of furniture to bring it … ahem … more up-to-date?  She had a beautiful cedar chest that could have brought a fortune to a lucky heir had she left it alone to become a treasured antique.  However, Mum, having purchased some of the ugly blonde furniture in its popular years of the ’50’s, butchered the potential antiquity right out of her dark, brown, cedar chest by cutting off its legs.  The curved and scrolled lovely legs were replaced with so-called modern, black, wrought-iron skinny legs.  She also stripped off all the carved, decorative trim and replaced it with plain trim.  Finally, she painted it a kind of peachy, pinkish blonde (hoping to make it fit in with the new round coffee table and the step end tables).  She then applied Roxatone to give it that all-over speckled look.  Roxatone was a spray-on product meant to be used as a kind of cover-up.  Well, it was the ’50’s as mentioned and Mum was just trying to bring us into the decade with a modern touch.  

Let us not forget Georgie’s leather paint kick.  We had an aging chesterfield that was covered in a nubble fabric.  Mum heard about leather paint and really thought the old couch could use a leathery lift.  So, can of leather-like paint in hand, she applied a putrid colour over the entire thing, cushions, too.  She took a gray and black pattern to a shade of puce that was a cross between shocking pink and maroon - and all in just two easy coats.  Except for the colour choice, she did a pretty good job. 

Remember those nubbles?  Well, they turned out to feel like sharp, little, pokey, needle knobs sticking into the butt of the sitter.  We tried not to complain but, bare arms were scratched and posteriors poked to the point of pain.  Hot summer days were a real thrill.  Shorts were simply out of the question.  If soreness didn’t get you, the sticky simulated leather trapped you until someone came along to help peel you off. 

Mum’s lesson wasn’t learned until her lady friends started to arrive in their nylon stockings.  The sight of a family friend walking across the room in increasingly laboured steps was quite a vision.  Long, fine threads were being pulled from the calves of her stockings while a few feet away the lady was still attached to the couch.  

As this old eyesore of a couch aged the paint started cracking and chipping away.  Eventually, tired of the cracks (especially the wise ones from her family) Mum had the couch carted off.  

I’ve mentioned their misfires only because they make me (and hopefully you) laugh.  Both parents were very good at creating new things and making do with what we had.  I’m happy to have inherited many of my parents’ creative talents.  More important, the genetic gift of humour abides within each and every one of the Turner siblings.  Family gatherings are never about tiffs and rattled nerves.  Our get-togethers are all about sharing life and laughter.  

Mum & Dad in their courting days.  They were married in 1938 so, this would be sometime in the '30's.  They always had a certain style about them and so good looking.  

Dad in his classic pose.  He rarely wore a shirt when at home ... winter or summer.  He must have hated wearing a shirt and tie.  I remember seeing him pull at his collar in disgust and discomfort.

This is my sister Dale (right) and me on our Christmas shopping trip prior to Dad's wallpaper fiasco.  If you've waited awhile for this latest post it was my obsessive compulsive response to finding this lost but remembered photo and the one of Dad above.  This particular photo was found in the last possible place to look in about the last thirty photos to search.  I'm reminded, looking at this, that my creativity in those days was expressed in making my own clothes.  I'm guessing, from my outfit which was made (not the leather coat) for a trip to Great Britain, the year was 1969.