Tonight we went out for dinner to the one restaurant it is still safe to eat at here in our town. Driving home in the darkness we noticed the prairie annual pre-Advent Christmas tradition is alive and well.
Remembrance Day in Canada is on November 11th. On November 12th our prairie friends and neighbours pop the Christmas light displays onto their lawns and rooftops and erect their indoor Christmas trees and other interior decorations. With only 6 or 7 weeks between Remembrance Day and Christmas it is a good thing they aren't wasting any time and yes, that comment is tongue in cheek! I have never seen anything like this anywhere else I have lived. Advent doesn't start for another 2 weeks, let alone Christmas, but the light displays, Christmas blow up lawn ornaments and indoor trees abound on every street. Living room windows are filled with giant fir and spruce trees covered in every conceivable type of decoration, from laquered Christmas candy cane cookies to fuzzy tinsel to artfully tied and starched white and red bows.
I don't know where this tradition began. Did it start back in the so-called Dirty Thirties when money was tight and other celebrations so few and far between as to be nearly non-existent for so many people?
Did it start in the 1950's when Saskatchewan began to be known as the "have not" province of Canada; the agricultural province that simply didn't receive the big money from oil revenues or ranching or mining or provincial handouts that other provinces did?
Wherever this all originated it still never ceases to shock me despite the years I have lived in this province.
I am not into Christmas trees and lights and decorations any more myself. Once my son moved away from home that sort of thing lost its joy and purpose. I prefer a little less glitz for myself at Christmas. But I do enjoy the displays that other people set up on their properties.
One great thing about everyone setting up so early for Christmas is that on Boxing Day all ready it all comes down and is put away...until November 12th of the following year. My husband's tradition of not putting up a tree or lights until Christmas Eve and leaving them up until 12th Night (Epiphany) is not practised here.....by anyone. In fact, in one place where we lived a few years ago we were presented with a fully decorated tree and 2 long strands of outdoor lights on Dec. 1st, because our parishioners thought we were too poor to afford decorations and lights of our own. Why else would we not have a tree all ready standing in our cramped little apt. living room and no garish coloured lights adorning our eaves? It was a lovely gesture and we didn't have the heart to hurt their feelings and admit we had a whole closet filled with Christmas lights and tree decorations of our own sitting unused and being readied for the thrift store.
Seeing all the decorations up in town all ready reminded me that I need to hang up our Christmas wreath on our outside front door so that we don't have a repeat performance of giftings for the season from well meaning and loving friends.
Guess I had better go now and put up that wreath. A friend is coming over tomorrow afternoon with some of her Christmas baking as a delicious gift for the rector and his wife....yum!! If I don't show some evidence of our bountiful collection of Christmas decorations I know she will be back with some of her own to share with us.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...everywhere I go.......(Feel free to sing along. On Boxing Day it will all be over anyway.)
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