Memories for the Season

Goose and I talked it over and decided that perhaps some words that take us back to a better time might be welcome as we close out this year and hope for a much better 2026.

Christmas is a very personal holiday often surrounded by festive celebrations. In 1973, my wife and I had our first Christmas together on the Nova Scotia coast. Since then we had twenty-three Christmas celebrations in Roanoke, Virginia, another sixteen on the North Carolina coast with our Crab Pot trees. There are a few others scattered up and down the east coat. Since 2021, we have celebrated on my home turf in North Carolina's rolling hills just west of Winston-Salem’s Moravian Community. A Moravian star has always been part of our Christmas decorations even in Canada and when I was child and had to put together the old style paper ones.

One of the most interesting Christmas celebrations that we learned of during our time on the coast takes place in Rodanthe and Salvo near the Chicamacomico Life Saving Station. I hope this year of homes falling in the water haven’t stopped them. For over one hundred years residents in the area have celebrated Christmas both on its normal December 25th day and Old Christmas which is celebrated eleven days later in the first week of January. Old Christmas comes from the days before the Gregorian calendar which removed eleven days from the year. The Old Christmas celebration starts with an Oyster Roast, music, bonfires, and the ritual visitation of Old Buck, a bull like, costumed creation which legend has it roams the woods during the year and comes out only during the Old Christmas festivities. We never got to see Old Buck while we lived on the coast, but we enjoyed many oyster roasts during the holiday season

We lived in Nova Scotia on the Fundy coast a for a couple of years and later in Halifax another two years. One of the Christmas traditions in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland was that of Mummers. During the time from after Christmas Day until Old Christmas, costumed visitors knock on doors while singing songs and hoping to be invited in for a drink or some food. There is even a Mummers’ song by the Great Big Sea, a Canadian folk-rock band from Newfoundland and Labrador. This is part of it.

“Hark, what's the noise out by the porch door? Dear Granny, there's mummers, there's twenty or more. Her old weathered face lightens up with a grin. Any mummers, nice mummers 'lowed in? Ah, come in lovely mummers, don't bother the snow, We'll wipe up the water sure after you go. And sit if you can upon some mummer's knee. We'll see if we knows who ye be. Ah, there's big ones and small ones, tall ones and thin, There's boys dressed as women and girls dressed as men…”

In some places there is a tradition that if the host cannot guess the identity of the group they have to join them in their merry making.

My mother before her death in 2004 used to tell us about Christmas on Styers Mill pond in Yadkin County just north of where we now live in Davie County. Christmas was not so much about the gifts as about the celebration of the season. She was born in 1910 and remembered most of Christmas treats being fruit, nuts or candy. Some clothes or other useful items might be given, but toys as Christmas gifts were as rare as automobiles for transportation were on the dirt roads of the day. One of the special traditions was the cutting of a country ham which had been specially prepared for the season. My mother talked of her father driving wagons onto the ice of the mill pond to harvest ice for their underground sawdust-insulated ice house, but most of the meat had to be eaten fresh or cured. Late fall and the winter holiday season was a time of plenty since the weather was cool enough for the seasonal killing of the hogs.

I suspect my mother’s childhood influenced the Christmas preparations that she made when she became an adult. For years until she got into under late eighties, Christmas was a time of baking and candy making. She would do a dozen or more real fruit cakes which were well laced with brandy. There would also be fudge, soft mints, applesauce cakes, spicy cheddar cheese straws, and finally what became another family tradition, peanut brittle. Presents were often hand crocheted hats or afghans.

When we have cold weather close to Christmas, we try to hunt down some raw peanuts and dig out the marble slab that we inherited from my mother and make a batch or two of peanut brittle. Not surprisingly Christmas breakfast is usually a meal of country ham, eggs, often toasted rolls leftover from dinner the night before.

While some Christmas traditions come from the countries where our families originated, many are a medley that families develop on their own as they move through different areas. I grew up near Winston-Salem which has strong Moravian traditions. Moravian Sugar Cake and Cookies were part of our holidays. I can still remember a trip to an Old Salem Christmas Candlelight service, and of course when we moved to our farm in Canada we took along a Moravian Christmas Star with its twenty-six points.

It was not long before we had to import a few for neighbors along with some Moravian Cookies. Our first Christmas in Canada along the shore of the Bay of Fundy helped us pick up a few more Maritime traditions. That year I had pickled herring as part of one of our holiday meals. It was not a tradition that we brought back to the states with us. Many of the local Nova Scotians had lobster as their holiday meal. My people in the Maritimes remember when lobster was poor folks food.

That first Christmas was something of a lean one with little extra money to spare so we had to create almost all of our Christmas decorations. We made some of our decorations out of salt dough and painted them with water colors. We also did many hand-carved wooden ornaments for our tree. There was one special ornament that ended up on that first coastal Nova Scotia tree. I had started out trying to carve a reindeer out of some scraps left over from the pine paneling that we were putting on the walls of our farm house. It did not take long to figure out that Moose antlers would be easier to carve, so thus in the winter of 1971, the Christmas Moose or Chris Moose for short was born. That winter strings of popcorn and cranberries joined our handmade ornaments on a fir cut from the back of our farm.

Since that time we have collected unusual ornaments, and not surprisingly I have received a veritable herd of ornaments, with each Christmas Moose more unique than the last one. We started our children early on their own ornament collection, but perhaps the best part of the tradition of Chris Moose has been giving to each of our three children their very own Christmas Moose which I carved by hand.

As each of our children moved out on their own, they got a wooden Moose ornament which was also accompanied by a letter which took as long to write as it did to carve the Chris Moose. I actually took the time to cut and cure the wood for each Moose from the back of our property on the mountain in Roanoke, Virginia. In our family getting your own Chris Moose was symbolic of growing up and being able to develop your own Christmas traditions.

The days of this Christmas season have flown by as quickly as have our many Christmas seasons since that first one in Nova Scotia. The memories of the season swirl like snow on a winter day in the north country. I remember my father telling me of the salt fish and oysters from the North Carolina coast that were always his special treats for the holidays. I am pleased that my holiday memories now include steamed oysters.

I remember my mother's parties with real eggnog and I even remember my first train set and going to cut a scraggly pine Christmas tree in the woods of Lewisville with my one-armed Uncle Joe. I had to drag it out myself. Later after we moved back from Canada and were living on the mountain overlooking Roanoke, Virginia, I remember our children coming home for the holidays. My wife's famous clam chowder was always the beginning of the holiday feast for me. She usually made potato soup for the rest of the crown.

This year we are having a pot roast. It is now something of an extravagance coasting much more than the rib roast we cooked a few years ago. I suggested saving money by having salt cod cakes but somehow that I hop got voted down. Imagine that.

Still we are making some new memories during the holidays, and I hope everyone will have some as nice as ours. Maybe next year our country will be able to once again make some good memories instead of just enduring nightmares.

Goose hopes that everyone finds a warm place to snuggle and gets some nice treats with their Christmas meals.