One of the questions that came up in the Q&As that wasn’t farm related, but I thought a nice question this time of year, was about Christmas traditions. I love Christmas, it’s my favourite time of year although this year, admittedly, we are going into the season with a great deal of trepidation and feeling somewhat deflated. This will be the first Christmas in 30 years that I don’t have a child to celebrate with. Christmas was also our beloved Mila’s favourite time of year and so that, too, brings a lot of saturated feelings from all the corners and cracks in our hearts.
I grew up in a French Canadian and a Slovak home. My Christmas memories from that time are my most treasured childhood memories. On one side of our family it was small rooms filled with boisterous French Canadian folksongs (I still can’t resist dancing a jig to this one), tobacco smoke, and whiskey filling the air. Each of my uncles and aunties and grandparents would be in a big circle, playing an instrument from guitars to banjos to fiddles, harmonicas, and accordions. Everyone raucously clapping and stomping their feet. We kids would dance about wildly, calling in Santa who would burst through the door throwing oranges at the adults and telling us little
