The Ebb and Flow of Holiday Traditions

No season is packed with more deeply-felt and closely-held traditions than the Winter Holidays.  

Of course, for each family, the things we hold dear are slightly different.  For my brother, sister and I--coming of age in Toronto’s suburbs during the 1970’s --it was agonizing over which present we would open on Christmas eve?  Then off to midnight church service. And later, a taste of Drambuie on Dad’s finger during holiday dinner. But what I remember most from those childhood holidays was enjoying the outdoors, together—the most valuable tradition of all.  

-Bruce and his younger brother on cross country skis at the family farm

After the presents had been opened, and the mess of wrapping paper cleared up, our parents would bundle us in snow suits and drive to the local golf course, where we schussed across snowy greens on cross country skis.  Snow ploughs still left mountainous windrows in those days, and the three of us would excavate a maze of tunnels before our house, rosy cheeked in home-knit balaclavas. Each year, Dad dutifully built a rink in our backyard, where we’d stay out way past dark, every night, swinging hockey sticks and skating in circles.  Then hot chocolate and marshmallows before bed. 

-Bruce helps his younger sister stay upright on the family skating rink

As a young child, those holiday traditions seemed immutable. Things had always been this way, and they would always remain this way. It was tradition. I couldn’t imagine life any other way. 

But slowly the three of us children drifted off to university.  And at the same time, winters being markedly less-white. Walks through misty Toronto parks replaced skiing on the golf course. Backyard rinks became a distant memory.  We could now drink wine at dinner instead of just a nip from Dad’s finger. Some holidays, one or the other of us wouldn’t even make it home. 

I eventually landed in British Columbia’s Kootenays, and started my own little family. Suddenly traditions began forming again--similar to my youth, but also uniquely ours.  

-Bruce's sons viewing a turtle below the ice

Instead of buying a Christmas tree in the church parking lot, we’d drag one from the forest behind our home atop a sled.  With a woodstove heating the house instead of a fireplace, empty stockings were now laid across the sofa.  And of course, my wife brought the flavour of her own family traditions, brought up in a tiny Prairies town; brined turkeys and stockings that overflowed beyond recognition, a Mariah Carey Christmas CD.

-Now grown, Bruce's youngest harvests a Christmas tree

But one constant that remained was the outdoors.  Frozen ponds replaced backyard rinks, where turtles swam below the ice and my own boys gazed in wonder.  Today, once presents are opened, we race to the local ski hill, trying to beat the lineups. Later, there is a bonfire on the shores of the lake behind our house.  My own mother, who has moved from Toronto, joins us in these new rituals, which form a scaffolding for her own changing life. 

-Bruce's mom enjoying a fresh snowfall at the lake

The traditions I once saw as immutable, I now view more as a tide; ebbing and flowing with the seasons of life; transitory and ephemeral--as we all are—but no less valuable for their fleeting nature.  

Words & Images: Bruce Kirkby