The strange sights and smells of the season
Making the case that the weirdest holiday traditions stand out as the most wonderful
One reason the holiday season is generally so heart-warming - and this may be the most persuasive explanation for it - is the comfort of traditions.
A proper turkey dinner can be a major undertaking, and yes it’s delicious, but its very nature is about gathering and sharing. And the debates to which it can give rise - white meat versus dark, cranberry jelly from the can versus homemade, dressing versus stuffing - can be as much part of the fun and warmth as the gifts, laughter and much-needed downtime.
So many Christmas (or insert your favoured holiday here) traditions can be universal in nature, bringing friends and strangers alike together to bond over mirrored memories. I was delighted to discover - early in my relationship with the woman I married - that like my family, hers had a Christmas Eve tradition of a single gift for each person. And invariably, it would be new pyjamas.
But the best traditions, evoking the fondest and most powerful memories, have to be the weird ones. The things your family does or did every year that made your friends look at you with bemusement or confusion. Those traditions that stand out as unique that stand out as part of your family’s identity.
For example, when I was growing up in Charlottetown, my family of six - Mom, Dad and four boys - observed no shortage of holiday traditions, some of them typical, some not so much so.
One of my favourites was the meal after midnight mass. Despite the hour, my parents would put on a huge spread, just for the six of us. Always starting with their lobster bisque, we’d also dine on Mom’s meat pie (essentially a tortière with ground beef and pork), plump sausages, homemade bread and what Dad called “fresh bacon,” which I believe was really pork belly fried to a crisp, which he then drenched in ketchup. He loved it.
My wife and I keep a version of that late-night meal alive as a tradition today, though we skip the fresh bacon and bisque (she loathes seafood).
Another offbeat element of holiday dining in our house was a sweet treat that made its way to our table at the end of Christmas dinner.
My late mother would bake a small cake, with thick white icing and a single candle sticking out of the top. It was a birthday cake, she’d say, for the baby Jesus. It was a reminder for us kids of the faith-based foundation of the season. We’d sing “Happy Birthday” as a family before Mom sliced it up and doled it out.
Even as a kid, I thought it was a rather odd tangent. I never expressed that perspective, though, because, you know… cake.
Real tree, unreal colour
But the one Christmas tradition that stands out for the MacPherson clan was our Christmas tree. Anyone who visited our home during the season were either awestruck or befuddled by it, but we loved it.
What made our tree stand out was that it was silver. And I’m not talking about an artificial tree that sparkled and shone. I mean a real conifer, perched proudly in our living room. And yes, it was silver in colour. Spray-painted silver.
A neighbour, Ernie Smith, owned a auto-body shop, and every year, Dad would avail himself of that friendship and his facilities to use his gear, designed for painting cars, to transform the pine-scented greenery into a gleaming yuletide tribute that could not be denied, topped or ignored.
Dad would paint the entirety of the tree, allow it to get dry at the shop (well, mostly dry) and then transport it home. The same set of decorations would emerge from the attic. White, silver and blue ornaments. Blue lights and garland. And Mom would coat the whole thing in those thin strands of foil tinsel that would eventually get entangled in the vacuum cleaner before the new year arrived.
To an outside observer, it might have looked like something you’d see in a Vegas casino or as part of a particularly cheesy and ham-fisted episode of Star Trek.
But for me and my younger brothers, it was perfectly normal while also being completely magical.
We knew other people didn’t coat their trees in sticky paint, and that evergreen was the usual symbolic colour people had in their homes. That just made us feel as though our tree was extraordinary, that the added effort made it maybe a little more magical.
Growing up, I never really questioned the tradition or asked why my dad went to such lengths at what was and remains an incredibly busy time of year for just about anyone.
It was only in more recent years that the family lore behind the Silver Tree came to my attention.
Given my father’s family’s predilection for exaggeration and the erosion of memory over the course of so many decades, I can’t attest this story is 100 per cent accurate, but given the consistency of the broad strokes of the tale, I’m confident that in a general sense, it’s true.
Julia and Squeaky Dan
My father grew up in New Waterford, a Cape Breton coal-mining community, in the middle of the pack of a family of 12 children (Catholics, am I right?).
His parents were Julia and “Squeaky” Dan MacPherson - so named because a new pair of nice shoes once squeaked when he wore them to church for the first time, and in Cape Breton, nicknames are forever.
Squeaky Dan was a coal miner and the sole bread-winner for a family big enough to be a professional sports team. My father used to joke they were so poor, the only thing a burglar would get when he broke in was practice.
But despite limited means, the family was also ahead of the curve in New Waterford when it came to amenities. The way the stories go, Squeaky Dan was so devoted to Julia, if there was some home furnishing or appliance that caught her eye, he’d do whatever it took to make it a reality for her. A washing machine, a fancy vacuum cleaner. If Julia wanted something, Dan was determined to get it.
Now in the 1950s, a trend emerged that saw people purchasing and erecting artificial Christmas trees in their homes that were white or silver in colour. It was a post-war world, and a Space Age sense of decor seemed to be everywhere that in hindsight seems campy and charming at the same time.
Apparently, Julia saw one of these silver trees - either in a catalog or a store window in Cape Breton, accounts differ on this point - and she was smitten by the new-fangled take on the Tannenbaum tradition.
As soon as Julia expressed her interest in Squeaky Dan’s presence, it was a done deal: there would be a silver tree in their living room for Christmas, no matter what.
For whatever reason - be it timing, access or funds (and given the size of the family and the era, I suspect it was the latter) - buying one of the new artificial trees wasn’t an option. But Squeaky Dan was hellbent on being the genie that would grant Julia’s wishes, and he was going to find a way to make it happen.
Now, the family had a relatively new Electrolux vacuum cleaner, quite the gizmo for the time, and one of its unique features was a reverse setting and a paint-spraying attachment.
So Squeaky Dan acquired a real tree - whether he bought it, cut one down in the nearby wilderness or embarked on some guerrilla landscaping in a neighbour’s yard, I don’t know - brought it home and hauled it into his basement.
Armed with the Electrolux and a can of silver paint, he set out to make his bride’s yuletide season as memorable and magical as possible, and he painted that tree in the basement. No tarps, and knowing the MacPherson penchant for cutting corners, likely no safety gear or mask. The walls were streaked with paint as Squeaky Dan covered every bow and needle with a silver sheen.
I would imagine the fumes penetrated every crevice of that modest house.
But Squeaky Dan’s efforts were clearly met with approval and adoration, because from that point forward, every Christmas tree in that household would be painted silver, adding more and more streaks to the basement walls with each passing year.
And obviously, it wasn’t just Julia who was taken with the metallic-tinged tree. My dad continued the MacPherson tradition for years.
Now, I have to admit, there’s no silver tree standing in my living room outside Fredericton. When we first got together, the woman who’d become my wife was less than enthusiastic about the notion when I told her of it, but to be completely honest, I’m just not sufficiently enterprising or ambitious enough to invest the time and effort necessary to keep it going.
‘Top of the list’
Fortunately, the MacPherson family tradition continues thanks to my brother in Ontario.
When he had a family of his own, he was intent on sharing the wonder of the Silver Tree with his kids, so he set out to revive this personal symbol of the season.
Unlike my father, though, he wasn’t so fortunate as to have a neighbour with an auto-body shop, nor did he have an antique Electrolux at his disposal. And even if he did, I doubt he’d want silver streaks on the walls of his finished basement.
So a few years ago, he called a local auto shop and said he had an unusual request.
The woman on the other end of the line said something to the effect of, “Doubt you’ll surprise me. We’ve had a lot of strange jobs over the years.”
“I want to bring in a real Christmas tree and paint it silver.”
When my brother asked her where his inquiry ranked in terms of the oddities at the business, the woman answered, “Well, you’re at the top of the list.”
The first time he painted his own tree, the timing was off, as he wasn’t able to leave it at the shop long enough for it to vent its gases or dry completely. So when he got it home, the tree brought with it a powerful scent of paint and pine.
“Derek, it’s beautiful,” his wife told him, “but the smell!”
“Oh my love, to me, that’s the smell of Christmas,” my sibling said with a smile.
Same here, brother. Same here.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
What a lovely read on Christmas Eve Dan. Thank you and happy holidays.
I So love reading this family story !!! Thank You
MERRY CHRISTMAS and all the best for 2024 .