Acorn Press Canada

Translated by Sally Ross
ISBN 978-1-894838-26-9 $19.95 / 6 x 9 / 160 pp / pb

FROM ACADIAN CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

Non-fiction by Georges Arsenault
Translated by Sally Ross

Excerpted from the Preface

I owe my interest in the history of Christmas to my mother. It was her favourite holiday and every year she took great pleasure in sharing with us her wonderful memories of Christmas in the past. Of course, she always made a point of reminding us that Saint Nicholas (the name we used for Santa Claus) was not a wealthy man when she was growing up. At the very most, he would bring her an apple, an orange, a few candies, and a small present such as a pencil box or a little teddy bear. The most magical of all her stories that I loved to hear about took place on Christmas Eve. After the family Christmas tree was decorated, my mother and her sisters would cross the road to their uncle's place to help put up his tree. Everyone would then gather round the tree and sing Christmas carols to the accompaniment of the harmonium.

The stories my mother told about Christmas went as far back as the 1850s when her great-uncle, Calixte Maillet, was a young boy. Many times he told her about the funny thing that happened to him one Christmas morning when he was riding on the back of the sow on his way home from getting the naulet or special pastry that his godmother had made for him, as was the custom.

Mother also told us that in the early years of her marriage (I am the eighth of eleven children), she used to wait until the little ones had gone to bed before she decorated the tree. At the crack of dawn, the children would hop out of bed, anxious to see what Saint Nicholas had brought them. Mother, however, had established a certain protocol that they had to respect. She made them stand in line on the steps, the oldest girl first. As soon as Mother gave the signal, the whole brood went down to the living room where they gazed wide-eyed not only at the presents but also at the Christmas tree which had suddenly appeared overnight. By the time I came along, this custom had been abandoned since the tree was put up two or three days before Christmas.

Like my mother, I have witnessed many changes in the way Christmas is celebrated. Born in 1952, seven years after the Second World War and the year television arrived in Canada, I belong to the first generation of Acadians to have known an abundance of Christmas presents. I was five or six years old when, on the insistence of my older brothers and sisters, we stayed up late for a réveillon or midnight meal. We were allowed to open a few presents at that time, but obviously not those from Saint Nicholas, since they hadn't been delivered. I also remember the Christmas tree with lights that my sister Loretta put up in front of the house in 1959, thus starting the tradition of outdoor decorations in our village. I also recall the beautiful Christmas stockings that my older sister Frances made out of red felt, on which she had embroidered in silver thread the names of the youngest children in the family: Donna, Noêlla, and Blair. That was in 1963. They were to replace the real stockings that we had always hung next to the tree on Christmas Eve.

Many other changes took place throughout the 1960s and 1970s, especially as a result of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Advent, which had been a period of penance and prayer, was no longer observed with the rigour of the past. We could now go to clubs and dance halls in the weeks prior to Christmas. We were even allowed to eat sweets and meat pies which had always been strictly forbidden until after midnight mass. I was already a young adult by the time midnight mass was moved to an earlier hour in my native parish, thus altering an age-old tradition...

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