Vol.13,
No.76, 2010/2011 Father Christmas Finds Our Family by Anne J. Fotheringham
It was two days before Christmas in
1957 and I was crying, sobbing my
heart out into a pillow on our
neighbour’s sofa.
Their living-room was decorated to
bursting with every type of Christmas
ornament imaginable and, in the
middle, a Coca Cola sign blinked on
and off. Mr. Gorman, our neighbour,
ran the local Coca Cola bottling plant
and their house was a living display of
everything Coke.
So why was I crying in the middle of
all this Christmas cheer? Because I
knew in my heart that Father
Christmas would not be visiting us
this year.
We had arrived from England in late
November, a week-long transatlantic
ocean trip. Then there had been the
crowded train ride from Saint John,
N.B., to Fredericton Junction. Red
Cross ladies had doled out advice to
the passengers, mostly immigrants
like ourselves, and given toys to the
children. We had been deposited on a
lonely strip of railway platform lit by
one dim light and were assured by the
railway conductor that this was indeed
our destination. Surrounded by what
appeared to be impenetrable forest,
the three of us stood there alone with
our baggage watching the train
disappear round the bend, absolutely
sure the conductor had made a
mistake.
But he hadn’t. We heard the sound of
a car door closing and our welcoming
committee, a frazzled lady, rounded
the corner of the dark depot. A quick
hello and she bundled us into what
appeared to be a huge car - definitely
bigger than any British car we had
ever ridden in -and then drove us to a
hotel. The next day we were moved to
a rented house along with all our
trunks and our new life began.
New school - not too bad. New friends
- okay. A different way of life -
difficult. And tons of snow - big
shock.
My parents and I had worked hard
over the past four weeks to adapt and
we were doing pretty well. But the
Canadian Christmas phenomenon was
strange to us and I was convinced that
we would be totally left out of the
celebrations.
Ever since I was small, I remembered
us taking a bus to the market on
Christmas Eve so we could buy our
tree. It had to be the right size - or we
couldn’t carry it all the way home. We
didn’t have a car. We carried the tree
together, making sure it didn’t pick up
any dirt from the coal-encrusted
pavements in our town. When we got
home, we put it up and sang Christmas
carols. After dinner, it was time for
bed.
Once we were all in bed, Father
Christmas would arrive with the elves
and fairies to work his magic. And he
didn’t come to houses where children
were still awake.
On Christmas morning, my parents
would open the living-room door and
I would step into a world of wonder -
paper streamers, bright lights, a
beautifully decorated tree, stockings,
presents.
Here in Canada it seemed Christmas
had started in early November, before
our ship had even docked in this new
world. Decorations were everywhere -
in the streets, the stores, the school,
my friends’ homes. Christmas was
also on everyone’s mind. For us it was
culture shock and my parents refused
to give in and join the holiday frenzy.
.Our Christmas ornaments, packed
away lovingly when we left England,
were still in the trunks. For us,
Christmas started on Christmas Eve
and no sooner.
I was so sure that because our
tradition was different, Father
Christmas, or Santa Claus as he was
called in Canada, would bypass our
house. We hadn’t done any decorating
to catch his attention. Worse than that
was the fact that we were renting the
home of another family with one little
girl and they had gone to Florida for
three months. Surely this Santa Claus
was expecting to find her down there
and would skip this address on his list,
thinking the place to be empty. And
why should he think otherwise? Not a
light, not a streamer, not even a wreath
indicated the slightest interest in
Christmas on the part of the people
living there right now.
Today I had been sent to Mrs.
Gorman’s house while my parents
were out desperately looking at
apartments as we only had the rental
house until Feb 28 and we had to find
a home. And seeing all her decorations
had set off the crying jag as I
despaired of Father Christmas ever
finding us.
“What’s wrong sweetie? Missing your
friends at home? Come here.” Mrs.
Gorman coaxed me out of the pillow
where I was sobbing, her deep arms
encircled me and she pulled me onto
her lap. She dabbed at my eyes with a
Kleenex - another Canadian
innovation. We used cloth hankies that
my mother carefully laundered and
ironed every week.
Goaded on by Mrs. Gorman’s
insistence that I could tell her my
woes, I let it all out. The prospect of
no Christmas, no Father, er, Santa
Claus, no magic, no tree. It was all too
much. I was eight years old, my world
was in chaos and I couldn’t figure out
how to fix it.
Mrs. Gorman let me finish my tale and
then made me hot chocolate. All the
time she kept assuring me that Santa
would find me. “He knows all, sees
all.” She made him sound like the allseeing,
all-knowing God our Scottish
minister droned on about on Sundays
down at the Presbyterian Church.
Elves, she told me, were scattered
around the globe watching all the
children, taking notes for Santa.
They’d find me.
Now I was getting paranoid. I had
grown up with my mother’s stories
about her wartime experiences in the
foreign office and of how her native
country Belgium had been betrayed
by fifth columnists. She had always
told me to be on my guard for spies.
Now I had tattletale elves to deal with
too.
To divert my attention from my woes,
Mrs. Gorman switched to the subject
of what I was getting my parents for
Christmas. I started to cry again. I had
no money. In England, I had received
a sixpence every week as allowance.
A sixpence went quite far. In Canada,
the dime resembled the sixpence in
size so that was deemed to be my
allowance. However the value was not
equivalent. I had been in Canada four
weeks. I had 40 cents. And I knew
from trips to the store with my mother
it wasn’t going to allow me to get my
parents any great gifts.
Distressed, Mrs. Gorman sat down
and we talked about what I could
make or find as presents for Mum and
Dad. We decided I would make a
home-made card and that I would give
my father my collection of Empress of
Britain plastic swizzle sticks. The kids
on the steamship had made a game out
of darting into the various bars on
board and stealing the sticks from
empty drink glasses. The stewards
laughed and nobody bothered us. I had
15 blue and white swizzle sticks I
could give to my Dad.
“That will be great for your dad’s bar,”
Mrs. Gorman said.
Everyone in this strange land seemed
to have a bar in something they called
a “rec room” which was located in a
“basement.” In England, we moved
upstairs into attics. In Canada, people
dug beneath the house and created
basements with rec rooms complete
with bars. It seemed backwards to me.
And we certainly had never had a bar
in our house in England.
Anyway, I was glad about using the
stir sticks as a gift if Mrs. Gorman was
- obviously I was going to be giving
my dad something very Canadian.
That left my mother and I hadn’t a
clue what to get her. “Aha,” said Mrs.
Gorman. She dashed out of the room
and came back with an armload of
fuzzy spongy blue and yellow items.
“Coasters,” she declared triumphantly.
“I got them free with my Whisk
detergent. We have tons. Here’s six for
your mother. They can go into the bar
too.”
I was feeling better. Now I had two
great Canadian-style gifts for my
parents and I could make a card at
home. That just left the problem of
Santa’s visit and the decorations. Mrs.
Gorman said she’d chat with my Mum
and see if she could get her to put up
the decorations a little earlier so the
elf spies could let Santa know where I
was.
Whether Mrs. Gorman spoke to my
mother or not, I’ll never know. The
morning of Christmas Eve my mother
told me my father was bringing home
the tree after work so we had better get
all the decorations unpacked.
Carefully we unearthed each glass
item - only two breakages. We had
even brought our own tinsel and
streamers as we weren’t sure which
version of Canada to believe - the one
the officials at Canada House had told
us about or the one with Eskimos and
cowboys that everyone else spoke
about. “Might as well get the
streamers up,” my Mum said. With
great delight I helped her put up as
many of the decorations as we could,
leaving the ones for the tree to the
side. My mother fashioned an
ornament for the front door out of
some ribbons and a couple of fake fir
branches that we had also brought
with us - unsure if they had fir trees in
Canada - who knew?
My Dad brought the tree home tied to
the top of a neighbour’s car. We
couldn’t have carried the tree and
walked home from Fredericton across
the bridge over the St. John River with
it - we would have frozen to death. We
put up the tree and, after supper, I
dutifully went to bed with a book.
Lights out half an hour later and I
couldn’t sleep. I lay there in dark
listening for sleigh bells, hoping and
praying that all the decorating hadn’t
been too late, that the funny-looking
decoration on the front door would
catch Santa’s eye and that the elf spies
got the word back to him in time.
Finally I did fall asleep only to wake
up in the light of a grey Christmas
morning. I scrambled out of bed and
looked out the window. It was
snowing so no reindeer tracks were
visible. I was scared to go downstairs
but finally I did, step by step. The
living-room door was open and I
could see flashing lights. I tore down
the rest of the steps and ran inside.
There was the tree sparkling with
lights. All our ornaments were on it as
well as some I had never seen before,
among them a beautiful angel on the
top. Surrounding the tree were the two
presents I had lovingly wrapped for
my parents, an envelope containing
the card I had made and, wonder of
wonders, a doll’s high chair, a doll’s
baby carriage and, the biggest surprise
of all, a child-sized Singer sewing
machine. Two or three more gifts sat
under the tree as well. I turned to find
my parents standing in the doorway. I
ran over and hugged them. “He found
us, he did,” I shouted.
“So he did dear,” my mother said.
“Ahena hoona heena hoon,” said my
father in his Scottish brogue and gave
me a kiss. We all sat down on the floor
and watched the tree lights for a while.
Then my mother handed out the
stockings and gifts. My parents
seemed very happy with my gifts for
the bar they hoped they would soon
have in the basement rec room of our
new home. They loved my card and
my Mum said she was glad all the
words were spelled correctly. I should
have known right then that she would
end up becoming a teacher.
There were gifts from the Gorman
family and several of the other
neighbours as well. The best gift of all
was a stuffed toy tiger who, I am
proud to say, shared my bed until I
was 12. He’s in retirement now in the
back of my son’s closet.
That Christmas was a special one and,
though we have lived through many
more and our family has grown, we
always remember every Christmas
Eve that first year when Father
Christmas found our family and
brought us magic in a new land.