The False Ducks Blahg

      Well, it’s the day before Christmas and I’m going to post this quick blahg. Today is December 24th and I’ve been sick for four days.  Last week I had to have a prostate biopsy, a nice theme for a Christmas narrative, and I had to go off my Prednisone for three days leading up to the procedure.  I was in rough shape and crippled up so badly that I my wife was assisting me in all the daily living activities.  I won’t detail those.  While I’ve been on the Prednisone I haven’t had a cold or the flu all year because that little steroid keeps everything at bay.  Three days off the medication and a virus going around work managed to work its way into my system.  I’m on the mend now and I hope Christmas day will see me close to my normal. 

     I decided to write another story for this Christmas season.  I won’t go into many of the details regarding the theme because the title of this blahg is the same as the Christmas Entertainment below.  This year’s story is all true with nothing made up but some embellishment allowed.  I hope that people enjoy it.  It was an experience just living it, let me tell you. 

 

MEATS AND CHEESES AND BABY JESUS

For the last few years I have endeavored to write a new annual Christmas story.  All of these have been fictional and I always struggle to try and find an original idea.  Sometimes a funny thought or phrase will pop into my head while I’m shaving or driving or avoiding listening to someone droning on at me.  I should be clear that the droning on does not refer to my wife or colleagues but then I’d never admit to it.

            I swear that the process of writing a story starts earlier each year but with the actual writing part getting later and later into the season.  The idea usually germinates for a while and then I write sporadically until a glance at the calendar emphasizes the need to double down on my efforts.  This year I promised myself it would be different.  Oh, I’m still writing this past the half-way mark of December but I’ve decided that this year’s effort will not be fictional.  It’s just too hard coming up with characters and situations when sometimes the truth is so much more entertaining.

So this is going to be a Christmas Entertainment.  I’ve used that term before when I once self-published a collection of stories in a volume titled “Proof For Believing”.  There were sections for short stories, poems, radio scrips, and the catch-all of Christmas Entertainments that were observations or recollections from past Christmases.  This year’s offering fits well into the category and I swear most if not all of this is true.  I hope it entertains the reader.  I know I was entertained in the experiencing of it all or at least inspired to write this entertainment.

As I have said, the process of inspiration usually starts early in the holiday season.  Sometimes inspiration strikes around the end of November when I’m playing Christmas music or during the first weekend of December when I’m struggling to put up my outdoor light display and wondering why something’s not lighting or something else isn’t inflating or I’m wracking my brain to remember where I put certain extension cords last year so I can access them this year.  I usually give up looking for the cords and purchase replacements only to find the mislaid ones right where my wife eventually tells me I left them.

Around the beginning of December we also acquire our Christmas tree.  I insist on a real tree every year but we’ve now gone through two Christmas Tree farms and we’re now onto a third…but I’m getting ahead of myself because the new farm is part of this narrative.

A number of years ago we used to cut our tree at Dewe’s Tree farm.  I don’t even know if that was the name of the farm.  It was just a large lot run by the Dewe family.  My oldest daughter Emily went to school with one of the Dewe girls or the only Dewe girl.  I don’t remember exactly.  What I do recall is that you drove down a dirt lane or mud lane or snow covered lane and past the Dewe home.  The lot was out back and once you parked your vehicle it required a lot of walking after that.  Oh, and there was no bathroom.  One year my son pooped his pants.  To be fair, he was three or four and had snow-pants on and had walked quite a bit.  We had to have the windows down on the ride home.

Mr. or Mrs. Dewe was always waiting by the make-shift parking area with a blazing fire and hot-chocolate for the kids and white-fish for sale.  I could never get my children to eat fish before that but I recall it being candied white-fish and that made the experience all the better.  Of course toasting marshmallows over the open fire was something the kids looked forward to as well.

The process of finding the right tree was always interesting.  When the children were little, every tree was a giant to them so they’d pick ones that, to the average adult, were not tall enough.  As they grew in height, the process seemed to take longer because they’d argue about not only the height of the tree and which one was the fullest but whether we were robbing some woodland creature of its home.  We always checked closely for nests or nut stashes before deciding if a particular tree merited further consideration.  We would of course walk about again before deciding on the tree we saw in the first few minutes of our trek.

The tree would be tied to the roof and hauled away home where it always had a prominent position in the home after the heavy moving of furniture was finished.  The cats always hunkered under the tree and drank the water from the stand and batted at the ornaments hanging on lower branches.  Until the Children grew in height, most of the ornaments hung by their hands were on lower branches.

I remember one particular Dewe farm Christmas tree that either came with an extra surprise or attracted one.  I recall coming downstairs one morning with my son and noticing one of our cats perched on the back of a recliner and staring intently into the boughs of our tree.  There, on one branch close to where it grew out of the trunk, was perched a small mouse.  It was a beautiful sight and the mouse was cute.  I however, was terrified.  I don’t do mice.  That’s another story.  My wife is the trap and live release expert in our home.  That morning I mustered up enough courage though to hasten along the visitor.  I turned on the Christmas tree lights and the mouse booked it down the tree and across the floor and under the couch with our cat fast on its trail.  The cat held it at bay under the sofa until my wife got up and caught it later in a margarine dish and released it outside.  I missed that experience.  When she got up, I went back to bed.

Eventually the Dewe family gave up running the tree lot.  That’s when we switched to Moore’s near Bloomfield.  The price also went from Dewe’s $15 to Moore’s $30.  There was also more walking involved.  There was still no bathroom but at least the children were older and could hold it longer.  Unfortunately I also got older and had to hold it longer.  Moore’s was not only more expensive and required more walking, the return trip home was now thirty minutes.  Usually I was the first one out of the vehicle and into the house.

Moore’s retired their tree farm last year.  I’ll come back to this year’s Christmas tree search in a bit.  I should add that I also have a tradition of disposing of the Christmas tree.  At the bottom of our property is a creek that runs fast and deep in the spring after the snow melts.  Our annual live Christmas tree, after its stint in the house, rests out behind our garage until I can get to the creek in the spring and chuck it in.  It’s swept up in the current and disappears.  I tried following a tree one year and got about half a kilometer before the creek took a bend through a farmer’s field and was carried out of sight.  In my imagination there is a Valhalla for our Christmas trees down where the creek ends or maybe it manages to make its way to the sea.  More likely there’s a dam of trees somewhere along the creek route overflowing and flooding the farmer’s fields or perhaps the basement of his farmhouse.

Getting back to the real point of this narrative and another particularly enjoyable tradition, for several years now my wife and youngest daughter and I have attended the live Nativity at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Bloomfield.  I’m not an overly religious person and I usually keep my beliefs to myself.  Let me be clear I have an open mind.  I hope that covers me.  If there are those pearly gates and I get there maybe they’ll rule out any of my transgressions while I was alive because I kept an open mind.  It would be interesting to get through those gates and see deceased relatives, friends, pets, those past Christmas trees and that one little mouse who scared me but who I let live.  That should count for something.

The Nativity story is a fascinating one and makes for a very interesting interpretation when enacted live.  Bloomfield however is not the first live Nativity that I have attended.  Once, in a large park, in New Market north of Toronto, I saw my first live Nativity.  In my recollection there was a hill and I recall seeing the three kings crest the hill with matching camels.  It might only have been one camel, which would make the going rough for the King sandwiched in the middle or the one in the back, but I’m going to remember the experience being complete with each King having his own mount.

The Emmanuel Baptist Church live Nativity is completely different than that one in New Market.  My first live experience was like watching a play and different characters entering and exiting the story.  In Bloomfield the Nativity is a series of vignettes.  Each part is set up as a station and you move from one to the next viewing the scene and hearing narration.  I can’t remember the order but I know the angel comes to Mary, there’s a scene where Joseph is also visited to explain why his virgin wife is bearing a child that is not his, and there’s even a scene between Mary and her cousin Elizabeth announcing the latter’s miraculous pregnancy and that Elizabeth’s child would grow up to be John the Baptist.  Of course there are the shepherds in the fields visited by an angel, the three Kings visiting Herod, and eventually the birth scene in the stable with an abundance of farm animals.  There has never been a camel in Bloomfield but they’ve always been able to muster up a donkey.  I think there might have been an alpaca one year because there are a couple farms around that specialize in that.  I used to drive by one of those farms and notice the odd donkey in with the alpacas.  Apparently wolves and coyotes won’t go near farm animals if there’s a donkey around.  Now that I think about it, the farm might have been a sheep farm and the alpacas were the protectors.  Maybe that’s why the alpaca was in Bloomfield.  It was there to protect the sheep at the Nativity.  Go figure.

The live Nativity at Emmanuel Baptist is spread throughout the parking lot of the Church.  You start at one end and eventually work your way to the manger.  It’s more about crowd control because you can start as soon as you arrive and you can’t move on to the next station until the one in front of you is finished and the spectators have moved on down the line.  Lights come up and the narration or acting continues until the lights dim cueing you to move to the next station.  Some years it’s bitter cold and I’ve been there in blizzard like conditions.  You wait your turn, the lights come up and the narration starts, you enjoy the experience, and you make your way down the road to Bethlehem.

As I’ve said, the live Nativity is a fascinating experience and if you are not frozen by the time you get to the manger scene then you are truly and wholly moved.  But wait, there’s a topper to all of this.  After the birth of Christ, you exit the stable and are invited into the church proper where every table is laden with goodies galore.  There’s always an abundance of cookies, tarts, squares, candies, chocolates as well as crackers, meats, pickles and cheeses.  Forgot that birth scene, the sight of that smorgasbord is the true miracle!

Every year I try to recover from the bitter cold of the live Nativity by stuffing myself full of every sugary treat that I can manage to sample.  There are so many delicacies that it takes an hour just walking about to be able to get your fill.  Oh, there’s live music and hot beverages as well but that heavenly banquet was always the true climax of the evening.

Last year I began to have some slight health issues and my blood sugars were creeping up.  My Doctor recommended I watch my sugar intake and I decided to go one better and give up sugar.  That meant no sugar in my coffee and a life with a limited intake of sweets.  It was probably a good decision and it helped me to lose twenty pounds.  This all came about however just before last year’s live Nativity so when I entered the Church I had to make do with the non-sweet items.  My Nativity experience in Bloomfield could now be summed up in a few words:  Meats and Cheeses and Baby Jesus.  Thus, the title of this narrative.

Now we cut to the current season and the flier that announced the Emmanuel Baptist Church live Nativity for the evening of December 6^th.  I marked it on the calendar and secretly counted the number of sleeps until the Nativity and the feast of snacks that would follow.  I think we received that flier well over a month before the event.  That was good, I thought, because I could make sure any other holiday plans would not interfere with the Bloomfield event.  Even another Christmas party that we attend yearly at our friends’ house was scheduled for the 7^th after having had the date changed three times and then back again to the 7^th.  It looked like nothing was going to interfere with our attending the live Nativity.

My luck ran out.  Even though that other event on the 7^th would not conflict with Bloomfield, I could not control plans made by others.  This time it was a staff Christmas party.  An email had been sent out in mid-November polling everyone for best dates.  I of course steered clear of even suggesting the 6^th.  I would have gladly have given up the party with our friends on the 7^th but when you’re a lone voice and everyone else picks a date you are holding close to your chest, you can’t win.  The staff Christmas party was a go for the 6^th.

To say that I was disappointed about not being able to attend the live Nativity is an understatement.  I tried not to grumble about it but some of my colleagues knew I was disappointed.  Some even thought I must be really religious if I had such dedication to the Nativity.  I thought about explaining my open mind policy regarding religion but in the end I just told everyone it was something more important than all of that.  It was about the meats and cheeses and baby Jesus.  It became my mantra when others became excited about how much they were looking forward to the staff party and becoming intoxicated.  I don’t drink.  So I’d just mutter “meats and cheeses and baby Jesus” under my breath and go about my business.

Two days before the staff party I broke my own vow against sugary confection.  I co-facilitate a men’s drop-in group at work and that particular day one of the attendees brought in some Portuguese Tarts to share with the group.  My colleague Alex extolled the virtues of the tart so much that I bowed to his peer pressure and ate one of the tarts.  It was a sugary custard tart delight.  The next day I was I sick.  Thank you, Alex.

I had been so good about avoiding all types of sweets that I think my body wasn’t ready for the richly sweetness of the tart.  It might also have been my body’s way of acting out its frustration that we weren’t going to get to sample all of those meats and cheeses.  The day after eating that tart I couldn’t be close enough to a bathroom.  There was a constant feeling that my bowels were ready to explode but all that would come out was sound or liquid.  I’m sure that’s not an image you expected to have in a story that also references the birth of Christ.

I still managed to go to work and keep up good spirits but inside my stomach was churning.  That evening I went out with a friend and I bought a platter of crackers, meats, and cheeses and a bottle of Schweppes Ginger Ale.  The platter was an assurance that I would at least be able to keep a part of my tradition by having the meats and cheeses on the night Jesus was being born in Bloomfield every five minutes.  The Schweppes was an added bonus because it was the only libation I would allow as an indulgence at this time of year.  The staff party was going to be held at my colleague Brittany’s house and she was a Canada Dry Ginger Ale fan and if I didn’t take the Schweppes then I’d have no say in what was offered to me.

The following morning, being the day of the staff party, was a Saturday and we had arranged to go cut down our Christmas tree for the year.  Our daughter Abbie was home but was taking a train back to Toronto that afternoon so she could attend a musical with her older sister Emily.  We would then drive to Toronto the following day to pick her up and bring her back home again for the rest of her holidays along with her necessities for the seasonal break and twenty pounds worth of laundry.  I really wanted Abbie to be included in the tree selection because she hadn’t missed a year of selecting a tree yet and with her older siblings in Toronto, it meant so much to me to have one of the children at least be involved.

I had done some research and with Dewe’s long closed and Moore’s finishing up the previous year, I still wanted to continue the tradition of going to a Christmas Tree farm and cutting down our own.  The closest farm, being 45 minutes away outside of Napanee, was Carol’s Christmas Tree Farm.  I thought the name of “Carol” and Christmas was a good connection and the fact that the last four digits of their telephone number spelled out “Xmas” synched the deal.  My stomach was still rolling from that Portuguese Tart but the thought of still being able to cut my own tree was a risk I was willing take and outweighed the thought of the 45 minute drive and the inevitability that, like Dewe’s and Moores, there would be no bathroom.

There’s not much to mention about the experience at Carol’s.  There had been a good deal of snow over the days leading up to our excursion so walking among the trees was magical if not slow going.  The farm itself seemed to be more upscale than Dewe’s or Moores and lent itself more towards the pretentious side with wagon rides, overpriced hot beverages, and a gift boutique.  It was also more expensive.  This year’s tree cost me $50.  That was more than the combined total of a tree from Dewe’s and Moore’s.  At least I didn’t poop my pants.  There still wasn’t anything coming out of that end so the lack of bathroom facilities didn’t make much difference.

The only other major change with Carol’s Christmas Tree farm was that they had some sort of netting device that you rammed your tree through to end up with a tree that resembled those netted hams or those bags of onions.  The whole netting process made it easier to secure your tree to the roof of your vehicle.  That was usually what we would do and I had brought along a goodly amount of rope as I wanted to ensure that the tree survived the 45 minute drive home.  Instead, because the tree was compressed in its netting enclosure, we managed to load it into our SUV with only one seat folded down and Abbie riding comfortably next to the tree in the other seat.  It was a nice fragrant ride home.  The total opposite of that time that my son…well you know.

The rest of the day was busy securing the tree into its stand in the house and cleaning up the needles that inevitably shed in our vehicle and across our floors despite the netting.  We left the decorating for another day because we had to also make sure that Abbie got on her train.  We didn’t want to leave her out of doing up the tree and I could use a little rest before the staff party.  In other words, I had a nap.

The drive to Brittany’s house was an hour from my house.  Everyone else lived within thirty minutes of her house but I had to leave at 6 so I could be there for the 7pm start.  I was the first to arrive and got the tour of Brittany’s new house.  I also got the first view of the buffet that Brittany had laid out.  Indeed there were many sweet items as well as an assortment of meats and cheeses.  I needn’t have worried about missing out on the meats and cheeses.  I also didn’t have to bring the platter of crackers, meats, and cheeses that I had purchased.  In fact, I don’t believe the seal was even cracked open on the platter that night.  Oh well, I didn’t go without and I also had my Schweppes.

Within fifteen minutes everyone else arrived at the party and I sat next to my colleague Terry on the sofa until someone suggested a game of Euchre in the kitchen.  Terry and I were partners and I never moved out of the kitchen for the next two and half hours while Terry and I took on and took down four other pairs of opponents consisting of work colleagues or their spouses.  At one point Terry and I came back from a seven to nothing deficit to beat one opposing team.  At ten o’clock I begged out of another game because I had that hour ride home and had to get up and drive to Toronto the next morning.  Terry would go on to play that final game with another partner and would lose.  At least I would retire unbeaten.  Nothing says Christmas like the competitiveness of a card game.

The next day we drove to Toronto.  I was still feeling unwell and slept all the way up while my wife drove.  On the return trip I managed to drive half-way home before giving into my body again and sleeping the remaining way.  I also had another quick nap before my wife and I had to head out to the Christmas party at our friends.

The annual party at our friends, Rick and Debbie’s is always a joyous occasion with singing and eating.  Rick plays the piano and their friend Greg plays a portable drumming device while my wife and Debbie gather around the piano as vocal accompaniment.  The rest of us join in on the carols we know or fumble along on those we think we know.  The food is potluck so you never know what you’re going to get.  This year there were lots of crackers and cheeses but no meats.  I think my stomach was thankful for that.  Rick, at one point, offered me a glass of Ginger Ale.  It was Canada Dry.  I was holding onto the glass and talking with someone when Rick came back and asked me if there was anything wrong with the Ginger Ale.  I said I hadn’t tasted it yet but his concern wasn’t that I thought there was something wrong with my drink but that when he poured it out, from a still sealed bottle, it hadn’t fizzed.  It turned out the Ginger Ale was very flat.  My stomach was also thankful for that.  It further turned out that Rick couldn’t recall when he had purchased the six-pack of smaller bottles of the Canada Dry but a look at the label revealed they had expired four years previous.

I thought that the experience at Rick and Debbie’s was a good capper to my weekend.  Not only had I missed the Nativity but my stomach couldn’t tolerate the meats and cheeses that I could access at the two parties.  At one party I had to supply my own Ginger Ale and at the other, the Canada Dry had gone off.  I bet the Magi never had had such a rough journey on their road to Bethlehem.

Everything else came together in the days following that weekend.  The tree at our house was beautifully decorated and my stomach returned to normal.  There was another work party a week and half later without alcohol but with another heavily laden buffet.  My stomach tolerated that one better.

At this Christmas work party there was also an ugly stocking exchange.  Each year you brought an ugly Christmas stocking and stuffed it with goodies up to the assigned dollar limit.  You randomly drew a number then you got to select an ugly stocking as long as it wasn’t the one you brought.  This year I thought I would make the theme of my stocking Meats and Cheeses and Baby Jesus.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find a Nativity stocking but that’s just as well because I don’t think there’s such a thing as an ugly Nativity stocking what with it being such a beautiful story.  I found a stocking at a thrift store with a Santa scene that looked like it had been cheaply and quickly made with all of the threads hanging out on the inside.

I filled my stocking with a re-gifted bottle of wine, an assortment of pre-packaged baby cheeses, a word puzzle book, and a large salami.  Unfortunately, with all of the threads hanging out on the inside of the stocking, everything I tried to stuff into the stocking became snagged and it limited what I could cram in there.  I had other cheese and some crackers but these failed to make the cut.  I also couldn’t find a baby Jesus ornament in any of my travels to thrift stores and dollar stores.  That too, was just as well.  The stocking summed up my experience.  It was an incomplete experience where I had to give up Bloomfield and everything else paled or sickened me…literally.  The stocking could not hold all the meats and cheeses and there was no Baby Jesus.  Next year when I get that flier from Emmanuel Baptist Church for the live Nativity I’m going to have it enlarged and copies given to everyone I know.  If they don’t get the message not to schedule events on that date then I’m going to call in sick.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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