PICKLED FISH for CHRISTMAS

"Christmas is a time for families..." -Dorothy Koomson

Christmas has always been quiet.Lights. Glittery things. Fire burning on the hearth. Pickled fish. Fruit cake. 

Hallelujahs to the newborn King......from ancient angels perched here and there. Hallelujahs loud and long.

"All thru the long year, the joy  you give to others  is the joy that comes back to you..." 

                   -Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

When I was growing up, I used to stay up as late as possible on Christmas eve. As soon as my mother and father had gone to sleep I would tip toe down the hall and camp out on the carpet in front of the  still smouldering fire, right where Santa would drop the Xmas stockings. 

I was determined to catch Santa Claus crawling down the chimney.

Usually I would wake up in my own bed. I think my parents carried me back to my room. Either that or I started sleep walking.  And when I would go into the living room there would be three big black work socks, stuffed with  stuff. I'd missed him again!   They were filled with candy, socks upon socks, paper for drawing, crayons,  a small tin of sardines, and an orange in the toe. My mother always loved the sardines. She got our share. My father got hankerchiefs and cigarette papers.

I always wondered why Santa always gave the same thing every year.  My mother would open a tin of sardines and smother them on the crackers, first thing, before coffee. My dad would roll up cigarettes. I would doodle drawings  and throw the orange up in the air like  a ball.

After a few years, it was just my mother and I. On those Christmas mornings she would stuff a massive turkey. It would weigh about a gazillion pounds. She would  leave it roasting while we went to church. We'd come back to a house scented with sage and thyme and the cat pawing at the closed kitchen door.

It was always just us. Always quiet. If my mother missed my dad, she never said so. She would set the table with her best antique china, put on the stereo to play Nat King Kole. I would hear her  humming in  the kitchen, trying to wrestle the turkey into submission.

"Freshly cut trees smelling of pine and snow and pine resin...inhale deeply and fill your soul with the wintry night." -John Geddes

As the years went on, there were still oranges in the bottom of the Xmas socks. The socks were a little more threadbare than they used to be. And my mother still had a tin of sardines and crackers every year. One year there was a hunk of hickory smoked cheese to go along with it.

And there was always music. Tons of it. Violin. Piano. Singing. My mother tried to sing  along with Nat King Cole. She couldn't sing a note. But she sang anyways. I used to cover my ears. But she would sing even more.

"Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself around you like a shawl. It warmed your heart. Filled it with melody that would last forever.." -Bess Streeter Aldrich

She would bake up a storm. Shortbread, fruitcake, Things to eat sardines with, Sherry trifles,mincemeat pie, mincemeat tarts, sugar cookies decorated with sprinkles, plum pudding for new years.Candles and more candles.

The table always set. Not for anyone in particular. Just for us. And a few extra plates in case someone dropped by. Usually the cat sat on the extra plates, and we would feed him turkey and sardines.

"It's easy to forget that Life is the greatest gift of all..." -Karli Perrin

I never did catch Santa coming down the chimney, all those years ago. And years later, things are a bit different. We've moved so many times, and it has always been just us, so Christmas is still quiet. Though most years, I've switched it up and there would be friends coming and going, dinner parties, Christmas teas, caroling. Plenty of time for that, later on. 

Instead of tinned sardines for Christmas morning, I now stuff the stockings with   jars of pickled herring...you should see their faces when they open the stockings.......

Spencer

So Hallelujah, the angels sing. 

                               And sing, and sing, and SING......

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year. I will live in the Past, the Present and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach..." - Charles Dickens ( A Christmas Carol)

 Photographs 2020