Christmas Memories: Live Candles on the Tree in a Wooden House

Ah, the festive season, the reminiscing season, is upon us.

                                       

I remember my mother, Helene, lighting the candles on our Advent wreath the four Sundays before Christmas. It was a tradition she kept from her little town in Germany. The wreath of pine and cedar boughs was decorated with pinecones, gold walnuts and Fliegenpilze (red mushrooms with white dots—a symbol of good luck). It was suspended from a slender red pillar set into a wooden base and topped with a gold star. 

For me, each lit candle brought Christmas a little closer. And the thought that those candles are mighty close to that wreath!

My dad continued the tradition for the two years he lived after my mother passed away. He would make sure to buy a fresh wreath, decorate it and add in real candles. When they started to show their age, they spluttered and flickered and sprayed out tiny blue sparkles. The Christmas spirit was present. It was a comforting tradition for him. But we looked at those sparks sparking away and said, “Don’t light the candles if no one is here, Dad”. 

Fortunately, his wonderful neighbours Mohammad and Gerry kept a close eye on him. I am eternally grateful to them. They were the true spirit of this season.

In my first year at university, our German professor invited the class to a friend’s house one winter weekend. We arrived at the outskirts of Gravenhurst. The place looked like we had just entered an enchanted snow globe. Surrounded by fields of pine trees, the large wooden cabin had been designed and built by the owners. Later we went out to the field to cut a Christmas tree. We trekked through a forest of pines puffy with snow wreaths. Now that I look back I’m assuming it was the owner’s land. I hope it was. Coming from a suburban house, I didn’t give it too much thought. We finally chose and cut a magnificent tree and took turns hauling it back. Up it went right by the giant picture window. We could see the snowflakes chasing each other as darkness fell. After we put up the decorations, real candles were lit. It was the first time I saw a fresh Christmas tree lit up with real candles--in a wooden house!

That magical sight has stayed with me ever since. It wasn’t a gathering of family, but the spirit of Christmas togetherness and joy was there.

And no, I have never put real candles on our live Christmas trees. The strings of lights you plug into the wall are about all the excitement I can handle.

Then there was Nonna’s parlour—the living room reserved for important guests and for us once a year on Christmas Eve. Any new boyfriend or girlfriend who looked like a “keeper” was made to feel welcome, to feel like one of the family. A close Italian family at its best. Back then, we all stayed up till midnight, even the toddlers. I still remember those little kids, tired beyond all understanding, clutching their toys. I imagine they were really questioning when Santa’s bedtime was.

Another time, we made some unknown person very happy. It was an act of kindness—unintentional. We had a beautiful stand of evergreen trees on our property, planted by the previous owner, who was a forester. I took a walk one snowy day through the field and came to the corner of the back fence. I looked twice. For many years that space held a majestic blue spruce. No longer. All that was left was a tree trunk ending at about the height of a chainsaw wielded by some tall person. Purloiner and tree had made a clean get-away.

Now that our family has grown to over 50 people, we tend to celebrate New Year’s Eve in our own smaller family circles. In the early years, the whole bunch of us got together on the last day of the year. We all stayed up till midnight and raised a glass of champagne, wishing each other Buon Anno.

“We are still here. We are still together,” I marvelled each year. 

As the years went on, parents were no longer there, some chairs were empty, but somehow there always seemed to be babies. Any little tyke in his or her high chair was the centre of attention. Our communal anima reached out to this new little being. Again and again, our eyes turned to this new life that would go forward into the future. Some of those babies now have little ones of their own, and we are looking forward with them.

I’d like to wish all my readers a wonderful Christmas, a festive season and a happy, fulfilling New Year as we look forward to our futures.

Canadian beginnings of a little kid

 

        

My parents arrived in Canada 70 years ago. There was always enough to eat and there was peace.

They lived in this peaceful country the rest of their lives.

Although I was too young to remember that day, my Canada started at Union Station on the first day of August. That summer in Toronto was sweltering. I remember the asphalt getting soft and bubbling up between the sidewalks. We started out in one room on the third floor.  Apparently, the higher up the stairs you went, the rent decreased and the temperature increased. Who had air conditioning? 

My mother, Helene, got work first, as a cleaning lady, and continued for many years. She was held in high regard by the well-to-do families she worked for. My dad, Werner, went into technical fields, eventually helping to develop a machine that used gravity to clean pollution from water.

That first October in their new country was memorable: Hurricane Hazel blew in. I heard the grown-ups talking about the Humber River overflowing its banks. Houses, bridges and other infrastructure were washed out. It was a devastation unheard of in Toronto. By the time it was over 81 people had lost their lives here.

But to a little kid, life is more immediate. There was always ample food: I remember the piles of fresh vegetables, meat, fruit and German delicatessen goodies my mom and dad stacked on the kitchen table after grocery shopping. Then we pulled up our kitchen chairs, sat down and admired this bounty. They couldn’t stop marvelling at such abundance and the fact that they could afford it.

For me, Sunbeam Bread was the biggest hit. A picture of a little girl with curly blonde hair munching a slice of this extremely white, soft bread was on the wrapper. I think it was first served to us at the home of one of my dad’s work colleagues. My God, it went well with baloney.  My mother wasn’t sure about white bread at first. My parents were used to sturdy rye bread, the darker the better. It had to make your jaws ache after you had a sandwich, preferably filled with lots of salami and mustard. But they got used to white bread sooner than I expected. And I can’t forget the little tins of Millionaires Sardines bought from Kensington Market. I think my dad got a kick out of the name; it was nice to dream.

All of us little kids in the neighbourhood played together mainly in the back alleys. I’m not sure how many different mother tongues we spoke at the time, before English became our first language—much more quickly than our parents. Then came the time when I wanted to speak English only. This created a healthy amount of tension. I suspect this may have happened in many immigrant households. Solution: German classes every Saturday morning. In our first year here, I couldn’t understand why my parents couldn’t read signs and newspapers in English. But they were no slouches either. Every one of them, including aunts and uncles, mastered their English, although the accents lingered. 

Even though our parents, like so many other immigrants, had expected the streets to be paved with gold, they adjusted to their fortunes and disappointments, advancing from one room, to two rooms, to a whole flat, until they bought their first house.

In Grade 13, a friend and I were talking in the library. 

“How long have you been in Canada?”, we asked each other. At that point, it was about 15 years for us. For my friend from Quebec, more than 400 years! We sat quietly for awhile looking at each other in amazement.

I was privileged to cover Canadian citizenship ceremonies for the Stouffville Sun, our former town newspaper. The people becoming new Canadians were proud and excited to be part of their new country. But for some, who had escaped oppression in their homeland, old fears—looking over your shoulder to see who or what was coming after you—didn’t fade away automatically.

                                             

                                   

Because of my parents’ decision, I grew up in Canada, the only country I know as home. Last summer, almost 70 years to the day that we arrived in Canada, we were standing in front of the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill in Ottawa with our children and grandchildren.  Although they are no longer with us, I am thankful that the parents of both my husband and myself made that important decision to  choose Canada.

And it has been good for us all, down to the grandchildren in our extended families. All told, we have backgrounds from a dozen different countries. But we are Canadian!

 

         

         

Forever Canadian. Eh? You Bet!!

  

Our neighbour has spoken. The tariffs du jour have arrived.

When thinking about the reality that is the United States, former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (aka Justin’s Dad) said it best: “Living next to you is in some ways like living with an elephant. No matter how friendly or even tempered the beast, if I may call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” 

Mr. Trudeau made this observation in a speech in 1969.

The U. S. put tariffs on their closest neighbours some days ago, right after midnight struck. For some reason I kept thinking about Cinderella. In the fairy tale, didn’t her glamorous coach turn into a pumpkin—a big orange pumpkin— exactly at midnight?

At first many of us were dismayed that these tariffs and other threats were  even happening. But it was not long for Canadians to become outraged and defiant. More Canadian flags started sprouting up everywhere. Canada’s leaders went to the U.S., talking to their counterparts and appearing on U.S. and Canadian TV channels. We vowed to buy Canadian, or from other countries, but avoid anything from the U.S. Lists started appearing on social media pointing us to made-in-Canada products. 

In some cases, it will be a challenge since our economies—U.S. and Canada—are so intertwined that many products are made up of components manufactured in both countries. 

But we made a commitment to try. We started close to home at our local supermarket. We did our big family shopping the other day. The bill was big; the two bags weren’t that big.  

After wandering up and down a few aisles, I looked down at my shopping cart.  There was our world in microcosm! So what was in my shopping cart?

Among the groceries, I had grapes from Peru and blueberries from Chile and Canadian cabbage, cheese, milk and yogourt. Some garlic at the front of the store had a nice Canada flag on it and “Canadian” printed in big letters. We are seeing more Canadian signage on what we are buying and in commercials every day that goes by.

That day in the grocery store, I succumbed to the Americans only sparingly. I have to reluctantly confess, the Brussels sprouts were from the U.S. Then I looked again at all the stuff I bought to marvel that we had such a variety of countries that we can buy from. I’m certain that our pioneer forebears weren’t enjoying strawberries in the depths of winter.  

Even though I was in the store for quite a long time, in my imagination I took it as a good omen that the American Brussels sprouts did not attempt to take over any of the other produce—at least not while I was watching.

Too bad it has to be this way!

We and the United States and, indeed, the rest of the world are more interconnected than many of us realize. Intertwined, if you will. We are like one of those braided money trees. If you cut off a couple of those supporting braids, it will look pretty ugly and something will end up falling down—when it didn’t have to.

                                                           

Universal Design: accessible housing gets support from Federal Housing Advocate

 

                                     

                                                                         NO ENTRY!

                              

We have all heard or experienced that too many Canadians are having a hard time finding a safe and affordable place to live.

Accessibility doesn’t seem to be mentioned all that often.

So it came as good news to the Accessible Housing Network (AHN) that Canada’s Federal Housing Advocate, Marie-Josee Houle, recently urged the Canadian government to incorporate Universal Design in its catalogue of pre-approved blueprint designs for homebuilders. This will result in homes that anyone, regardless of their ability, can enter and exit easily and live in comfortably and successfully. 

The AHN, comprising about 70 organizations, has long advocated for homes that can accommodate all people throughout their lifetime.  Its co-chair is Stouffville resident Dr. Salvatore Amenta, a tireless advocate for the rights of the disabled. I’m sharing his article below on how Universal Design is vital to a large segment of the population, including the huge number of baby boomers who will turn 80 over the next few years.

But first I did a little research on how Universal Design started. If you are healthy and active, you can live your life almost anywhere: no matter how many stairs your house has.  You can can work well with ‘normal’ height kitchen counters, you can turn doorknobs and scoot into the bathroom any time you want. You even have the stamina to stand at the stove and cook a whole meal.

But, throw a sudden injury, an on-going disability, waning strength and stamina or a wheelchair into the mix, and your life looks a lot different. 

And that’s the way it was for the many injured soldiers returning home in 1945 after the Second World War. For many, their homes were no longer liveable and society had to confront this new reality. 

A few years later polio came along. Ronald Mace, born in 1942 in the United States, contracted the rampant disease when he was nine. Next step: the wheelchair. He persevered, however. Even though he had to be carried up and down stairs for his classes at university and helped into the washrooms, he graduated as an architect. Thinking that there must be a better way, he came up with the idea of Universal Design for his home designs. Universal Design can include such features as wider bathroom doorways, lower kitchen counters, lower light switches, ramps instead of stairs, and other adaptations depending on people’s needs both in their homes and public spaces.

For more insight into an issue that will eventually affect many of us, please read Mr. Amenta’s article below.  Please share, if you wish.

BREAKING NEWS:  

Federal Housing Advocate calls for Universal Design

By Salvatore Amenta

 

Since the Accessible Housing Network considers Universal Design the key to housing for all, AHN welcomes the Federal Housing Advocate’s recent call to require it for the pre-approved plans in the government’s forthcoming catalogue.  

 

Universal Design (UD) anticipates everybody’s needs before they arise – for parents with strollers, delivery workers, movers, young and old.  Automatic doors and ramps are very popular, yet we keep building homes only for the able-bodied.  After an accident or chronic illness we incur costly renovations to stay home – unless it was built to be accessible and adaptable to begin with.  

Universally-designed housing accommodates people of all ages and abilities; it is easy to enter and live in barrier-free, for life.  Australia mandated UD in its national building code, and AHN has petitioned Parliament to do likewise.  

Since accessible housing is rare, Marie-Josée Houle urges government to provide an adequate supply.  However, an adequate stock of it can’t be built for future generations unless the provinces and territories follow a national standard.  And the housing crisis can’t end while there’s buck-passing and delay.

Fortunately, accessible housing is affordable – if we just change HOW we build!  Accessibility Standards Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation agree:  adaptable housing costs a little more but saves a lot more in renovations, and accessible apartments cost the same.   

 

Accessible housing is also safer – leading to fewer falls and ambulance calls, ER visits, hospitalizations (Visit AHN’s website.)  It raises our standard of living.

 

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (2005) and Accessible Canada Act (2019), aim to make Ontario fully accessible by 2025 and Canada by 2040.  But they are concerned almost exclusively with PUBLIC spaces, as if accessibility isn’t important in PRIVATE spaces!

This may explain why builders settle for minimal requirements and building codes require only 15% of apartment units to be "visitable" (rather than livable).  The needs of “normal” people seem to trump those of the “disabled.”

But StatsCan’s figure of 27% is only the tip of the iceberg.  It hides millions of Canadians who do not report being virtually blind without glasses, deaf without hearing aids, grounded without mobility devices. 

The good news from StatsCan is that 75% of seniors own homes worth about $750,000. Millions of them could afford to buy the accessible housing they need with their trillions in equity.  By mid-century their number will double in some areas!  

Why isn’t the housing industry capitalizing on this?  Few developers and municipalities are providing accessible housing (like the Daniels Corporation, with its “Accessibility Designed Program”, and Edmonton with its Lifelong Homes).  In September of 2023, only 33 of Ontario’s 901 real-estate developers were members of the Accelerating Accessibility Coalition.

 

We are all an accident or illness away from disability, suddenly facing barriers in and out of the house.  Seemingly unaware, the housing industry keeps building units that are inaccessible, non-adaptable, and also unaffordable.

But housing has been declared a human right, so to delay it is to deny it – especially for seniors who don’t have long to live.  Some are resorting to MAiD for the desperate lack of proper housing.  The housing rights of persons with disabilities are being violated and seniors are being forced into long-term care where thousands died of COVID.

 

Marie-Josée Houle is urging collective action on housing, stressing that “we have an incredible opportunity to build inclusively from the start, which will make a real difference in peoples’ lives”.  Her call for Universal Design advances the Accessible Canada Act’s goal of a barrier-free Canada.  

Accessible housing for all – now!

Salvatore Amenta, Co-Chair, Accessible Housing Network

E-Mail: AccessibleHousingNetwork@gmail.com   

La Befana Swoops By Stouffville

                                                                              

The festive season brings with it many amazing and wonderful things. Increased goodwill, camaraderie and cheer.

It is good to be alive.

Around here, we keep that festiveness going. After all, we have to be ready for La Befana. She arrives here on January 6th after a strenuous overnight flight from Italy.  I imagine riding a broom for hours without a padded broom handle might get a bit painful, especially if you are a few centuries old. 

This good Italian witch is part of a puzzling seasonal phenomenon. There is a skyrocketing increase in break-ins in most of our homes, but most of the time we don’t call the police or beef up our security systems. We don’t fear losing our possessions, be they mundane or treasured, from these annual break-and-enter artists. Instead, for many of us who are fortunate, things are coming in by droves. Remember Christmas morning?  

Beings like The Elves on the Shelf are among the first to enter many homes. These sprites cause all kinds of naughtiness—spilling things, hiding themselves in odd places, breaking into the treats and leaving crumbs, or worse, all over the kitchen counter. Then, whether you have a chimney or not, Santa will have arrived really early to our homes where children have been too excited to sleep and parents are too tired to get up. Other assorted elves such as Bluetoes may visit too. This year, just before Christmas Eve, he brought us a small paper house filled with gingerbread.

Where do all these welcome visitors come from? 

“The North Pole!”, children will shout.

We, who call ourselves grownups, also know they come with all the love and goodwill that all of us can muster, even under trying times. It’s a world-wide happening—every year, every year.

Now we are waiting for La Befana to swoop by on the eve of January 6 to fill the socks we leave out. She does get to visit most of the kids in Italy, as I understand it.

This day, which falls on Epiphany, is a public holiday in Italy and has been celebrated since the 1300s with special festivals, decorations and lots of little toy Befanas. Kids put out their socks hoping to avoid getting that dreaded lump of coal—La Befana will know if they have been on their best behaviour.

                                                           

A few years after La Befana had been visiting our house, we found out more about her life from a charming book called “The Christmas Witch, An Italian Legend”. Did you know she has a terrible singing voice? Causing shutters to slam around the neighbourhood? And she bakes delicious cookies. We re-read the book every year. Legend has it that the three Wise Men stopped by her place looking for directions to the manger where baby Jesus lay. They asked her to come along. She hesitated. She had to sweep and clean her house first, she explained. By the time she had a change of heart, it was too late. She never found the Wise Men or the stable. But ever after she has flown around on Jan. 6 giving small gifts to as many children as she can.

                                                            

           

 

Surprisingly, La Befana has made it over here to furthest Stouffville for our children and now our grandchildren. We put out an assortment of regular socks—the bigger, the better. La Befana fills them with a couple of chocolates, some salami, walnuts, mandarin oranges and maybe a tiny cheese or two. Many years ago, as some of my Italian relatives remember it, she would tuck the only orange of the year into those socks. That precious, glowing orange. But during war years or other lean times, even her magic couldn’t make that orange appear. But she always managed at least some roasted chestnuts, dried figs or an apple.

For the brand-new year of 2024, I wish everyone this same spirit of goodwill to overcome conflicts everywhere. I wish you all a happy, healthy, creative and peaceful New Year.

PHOTO CREDITS: 

Photo of LaBefana dolls in Rome, ricksteves.com by ETBD staff

La Befana book: The Christmas Witch, An Italian Legend Retold by Joanne Oppenheim, Illustrated by

Annie Mitra, published by Bantam Books, 1993.