The snow is falling on the corner where James Street meets Barton Street in the north end of Hamilton, Ontario.
The north end of Hamilton is where the poor people live in Canada's steeltown, otherwise lovingly known as "The Hammer" by those of us who have called this city our home.
A little boy is staring upward at a city streetlight, his little heart pounding with excitement.
This kind of snowfall means Christmas is coming and that means Santa Claus is coming too and the jolly old fella will drop by and leave a ton of gifts and goodies under the evergreen tree for him.
His Mommy and Daddy run the local diner which they have named after their one and only son.
Ron's Quick Lunch is where they work and where they live. Business and home is separated by an old dirty, torn curtain where sometimes the little boy's father brings a woman from the restaurant and-well, takes her behind the curtain. When his father does this, the little boy hears laughing and other strange sounds emanating from behind the flimsy partition.
He also sees his mommy's tears streaming down her face.
His mommy cries a lot, alas the family is drowning in debt and when the bill collectors come looking for money, the cowardly parents send the little boy out to tell them that they have none and to come back next week when they have some.
There will never be some...
There will never be ANY MONEY to pay the bills at Ron's Quick Lunch.
By the way this little boy was my father.
Until, I was sixty years old I hardly knew anything about this very dark side of my father's childhood.
I only knew that he was broken.
Broken, way beyond repair, at such an early age, like before the first grade kind of broken.
In fact, all I knew about his boyhood was the part about the snow and the street light and the north end and how he would talk about Christmas morning when Santa left so much for him that he literally could dive into all of his treasures.
And, how did this come to be?
If you know me, inevitably at one time or another, I will ask you what your favorite Christmas song or carol is and why?
It is the question I would add to Proust's little questionnaire.
I will ask my father this question as a young teenager and he will instantly reply: "Winter Wonderland."
And he will tell me about the snow and the streetlight.
He will also reveal this little piece of wisdom to me.
"Christmas is never the same after you find out, there is no such thing as Claus." My father always referred to Santa by his surname which always pissed off my ex-husband.
Ah, Father Time and the Holidays.
I will learn that there is no such thing as Christmas after my divorce.
And for the books, my ex-husband's favorite Christmas song is "Silver Bells." But only when Bob Hope sang it on his Christmas specials. You remember, those specials, the ones after the Vietnam war ended where Bob and a luscious babe (usually blonde) and tone deaf would lip-sync their way through a very fake Christmas set.
It was so bad and fake but it was so good because it wasn't Vietnam.
As I am blogging this post, the malls are playing the ubiquitous Christmas countdown charts while the shoppers rush around from chain store to chain store debiting their little hearts away.
They are all dead now.
Mort.
You know, the ones who recorded all the NOEL novelties for us.
This breaks my heart more and more as the years go by.
Yesteryear.
When newspapers would slip a Carol Sheet into their Saturday editions.
I remember being seven when my mother and I started singing from the carol sheet before I would take it to school for our Christmas assembly.
Musically, my mother was a contralto or a baritone. Her favorite carol was Good King Wencelas. I could never figure that one out. Did she not understand the true art of Christmas music?
However, before I was married when I would come home on Christmas Eve, I would find my mother sitting in the dark with just the Christmas tree lights on listening to Barbra Streisand singing Guonod's "Ave Maria."
I could see the tears streaming down her face.
When my mother died in 1991, she took Christmas with her leaving my son a Christmas orphan. My father and brother chose FESTIVUS and Seinfeld over the real thing and Christmas as I knew it went completely down the tubes.
The broken always choose artifice over reality.
I did not understand why then.
I understand now.
On July 29th of this year, I became a grandmother.
Martin Theodore Carey Bowles is his name.
He lives in the north end of Hamilton just like his great-grandfather and his great-great grandfather before him.
It is trendy and expensive to live there now.
De rigeur.
Yesterday, I privately messaged my son via Facebook asking him THE BIG QUESTION.
He messaged back: "Good King Wencelas."
I was gobsmacked.
"It is regal and stately", Mom.
Yes, it is my son, yes it is.
And laden with over sixty years of Holiday memories deep, deep down in the crevices of my Holiday heart.
I have to go now.
"Merry Christmas, Gentle Readers", may all your Christmas dreams come true.
Robyn, XOX
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