The Magic! November 30th 2025

 We got past Grey Cup and American Thanksgiving.  And far be it from me to pass over a chance to bring up that the Saskatchewan Roughriders are the Grey Cup Champions...... but I digress..... Tomorrow is December first.  There are no more hurdles or barriers between my favourite time of the year and me.  

We are small town folk.  I grew up in Drayton Valley, Alberta. Population 4000 for almost the whole  time I was a resident.  My first posting was Pelly, Saskatchewan population 300.  There isn't even a detachment there anymore.  My better half was a city girl until we tied the knot.  Since then the largest place we lived was about 20,000.  

When you're a kid in a small town, there is nothing better,  and I do mean nothing better than the big city department store toy department at Christmas.  The Bay, Simpson's Sears, Eatons.  All were huge four story department stores in downtown Edmonton.  The decorations were over the top.  The toy departments contained every kind or army toy,  Fort set, cowboy attire you could imagine.   Lights, tinsel, candies, and music filling every floor.  

 On every corner was a Salvation Army kettle with a shivering jingle bell ringer who was ever so pleasant, and happy.  I grew up in the late 1950's and early 60's.  Downtown Edmonton was magical for me until I was a teen ager.  The shopping mall hadn't really arrived in Edmonton in those days.  Downtown was where it was at.  

My home town had a Bay.  In fact I worked at the Bay for three years after Schools and Saturdays.  In our downtown, the Bay was shopping central.  There was late night shopping once a week till Nine p.m. on Fridays.  All year on Friday nights the trading area of Drayton Valley showed up in our uptown.  (Cities had downtowns and towns had uptowns in these parts of my home and native land.)  Mom's bought groceries, and did the rounds of the drug stores (which contained just about everything you could imagine)  the men's wear, the ladies wear,  the hardware store,  and a couple other multi service stores like MacLeod's and Stedman's.  

Teens from out of town would hitch a ride into town with mom and dad and hit the local cafe where we hung out eating fries and sipping glasses of fountain soft drinks.  Many of the boys hit the pool hall where they would shoot eight ball and smoke.  

And many many a dad would hit the bar.  A huge tavern that took up half a block of the Drayton Valley hotel.  Friday nights were a really special time in my home town.....but this time of year it was "special" on steroids.  The grocery stores got in exotic things that appeared once a year!  Things like Egg Nog in a carton,  tiny wooden boxes of Mandarin Oranges from Japan.  There were english chocolates, and fruit cakes and chestnuts and ginger beers.  Many things that are available all year round now.  But they only showed up in our little town about this time of year.  

Both Eatons and Sears had a Christmas Wish book.  The catalog!  Pure kid gold!  It usually came just after Halloween, and there was almost nothing left of the toy section by the end of November.  I got my first real drum kit from the Sears Catalog.  A set of Pearls in metallic red with an eighteen inch crash symbol.

We would spend hours and hours thumbing through the catalog selecting the perfect fort set or six guns.  We would spend those hours dreaming about the games we would play with our new weapons.  And from time to time those most coveted items in the catalog showed up in the toy department at the Bay, or Valley Drugs.  You could actually take those toys down from the shelf and hold them.  

In the beginning of December my mothers church group would have a rummage sale and tea.  The tea part was mom's idea.  She would bake a cake for a raffle,  she would solicit the use of other women's fancy china cups and they would serve Christmas goodies and fancy sandwiches on the last Saturday in November to raise money for the church.  Uptown was abuzz this time of year in my hometown.  

Now thirty days had November,  and Christmas is a mere 25 days into December,  but those two shorter and partial months were undoubtably the longest in a kids year.  Now that I am a senior,  I have come to suspect that the length of time November, December took to pass when we were kids was one of the best gifts of Christmas.  Age has made a whole day the blink of an eye.  A month?  Hardly worth mentioning.  Seems like everything is over before it even starts.  But as children, we were given time to dream.  Time to plan.  Time to feel the excitement of Christmas.  

There were company Christmas parties.  Service Club Christmas parties.  And Christmas Concerts!  Not the Johnny Reid, Edmonton Symphony, Jann Arden concerts.   Local concerts with somebodies uncle on the Accordion, and a nativity scene with bathrobed itchy shepherds who searched the gymnasium for their mom and dad and shot them a wave when they found them.  

Although I have eluded to all the commercial aspects, the reason for the season did not escape my family.  My parents were heavily involved in our church.  They collected and sorted and delivered.  They were thankful for what they had and for what they could afford to give.  Jesus was a large part of my parents life.  For all the hours scholars have spent interpreting the teachings of Jesus,  it is all really pretty simple.  But as simple as the message may be, it is almost impossible to live.  There are family pressures, financial and otherwise that Christmas can bring.  But for me, it has never outweighed the joy.  The excitement.  

Sometime this year I read an internet philosophy that is oh so true:  Most of us are homesick for a place and time that no longer exists.  I wish my grandkids knew the Christmas I did.  The small town late night shopping, and the discovery of imported treats.  The excitement of the Christmas catalog and the trips to the big city department stores.  There are no major downtown department stores anymore.  The Bay was the last to fall.  In fact most malls are half empty as we have all turned to online shopping.  Even the Christmas specials on t.v. have resorted to the exact same romantic formula story brought to you by Hallmark.  My mom and dad's church in my hime town is now a funeral home.  What stores are left are open late every night.   You can get exotic oranges and chocolates when ever you want.    Those times are gone.......But not the magic.

That spell,  that magic,  still has a grip on my grand children like it did on their parents and grand parents.  The magic remains.  And although I wish they could live those times I miss so much, I doubt it would mean the same thing.  

My dad grew up in Virden Manitoba during the great depression.   Virden Manitoba is on the prairies were trees are rare.....very rare.  There was no trip to the woods to cut down a tree.  When my dad was about 10 or so he and my uncle were on their way home when they found a spruce tree branch on the road.  It had apparently fallen off a vehicle or wagon when someone who could afford a tree was transporting it home.  Dad took the branch home where my grandma cut it in half and crossed it over the the door.  My dad often said that was the MOST Christmassy thing he'd ever seen.  The magic is always there.   It just isn't the same.  

There is going to be more about Christmas on this page in the next little while.  Fair warning in case Christmas makes you angry.  But I feel the magic, and I am willing to share.  So here we go!