One Holiday, Two Traditions

Late in the afternoon on Christmas day, I left my phone on the kitchen counter, donned a grey overcoat and a cashmere, checkered scarf, and began walking south from my apartment. I crossed over to Bay St.--often discussed as Canada's Wall St.--on which I remained until I hit the shore of Lake Ontario. As I moved along the gradient of buildings from my dingy, brick-intensive neighborhood into the upscale design of the Financial District, I thought about how my walk could be imitated in nearly every major North American city. Industry tends to agglomerate near the water, and expensive, structural investment follows it.

As I passed the base of City Hall into Nathan Phillips Square, I was interrupted by a meandering child who, dazzled by the light of the city's Christmas Tree, stumbled in front of me. I smiled reassuringly to his mother in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent her from chiding him before walking into the Square proper, where its fountain is annually converted into an ice skating rink. The rink/fountain bustled with parents and their children as older family members warmed their hands with coffee and cocoa at the fountain's edges. The letters of the  'T O R O N T O' sign, on the north end of the rink/fountain, were lit in alternating green and red reflected dimly off of the blemished ice.

A picture of the scene, taken during my visit to Toronto last December

The air got colder and the wind began to bite my nose and ears as I passed into Habour Square Park. Pausing only to chuckle at the bright orange scarf and cap that covered the statue of Jack Layton sitting on the back seat of a tandem bicycle, I walked to the railing at the edge of the water. A young British couple watched their even younger boys toss snowballs at one another, and another young couple speaking an unidentifiable Eastern European language struggled to photograph themselves with the Toronto Islands in the background. They excitedly thanked me in broken English after I offered to take their picture for them. 

After standing alone by the water long enough to decide that it was too cold to remain or walk back, I boarded a streetcar to Union Station, where I transferred to the subway that runs right to Wellesley station, less than a block from my apartment. I was surprised by how many people--mostly families--surrounded me on the subway. A teenager stood with her parents near the train's doors, all of them holding ice skates. Is this how families in the city spend Christmas? I thought to myself. The crowds of families skating in front of City Hall, the couple and young family at the park, and the families I passed on my walk through the Financial District rushed to the front of my mind. It occurred to me that this would be my latest lesson in how different urban and rural upbringings truly are.

One Christmas in particular that has stuck in my mind this year is that of 2010. The Christmas celebrations themselves were unremarkable, but our tree stuck with me. Traditionally, tree collection was a family activity. My brothers and I would pile into the Chevy Silverado with my parents, and my dad would drive us down some unmarked road that was so unpopulated that nobody bothered to plow it. We'd park at a wide spot of the road and preemptively turn the car around. We'd wander into the woods, lowering our tree standards in proportion to how much the snow was soaking through our boots and pants. When the candidate was chosen--in good years, a Douglas Fir--my dad would grab the chainsaw from whoever's turn it was to carry it, and I'd test my mom's anxiety by getting as close as I could while he felled our Christmas tree.

Where I spent Christmas from 1994 to 2012

For Christmas 2010, I was the only child living with my parents, and my dad had just undergone a major surgery. My parents, justifiably skeptical of assigning me (having never operated a chainsaw before) the tree collection task alone, sent me and my friend Patrick to do it together. I like to consider myself a thorough, hard worker now, but at the time, I was your typical video gamer: I'd spend hours getting full points in Assassin's Creed II, but when my dad asked me to collect firewood, I'd haul in just enough to ensure that he wouldn't send me out to get more. I'm sure Patrick would agree that he shared my philosophy.

We hopped into my powder blue 1995 Subaru Legacy (endearingly named Beverly) and drove to the county road closest to my house. About five miles from town, where the road turns from blacktop to gravel, we spotted an arrangement of Douglas Firs just off of the road. I pulled Beverly to the edge of the ditch and flicked on her hazard lights as we wandered over find a candidate. Our chosen one was full and perhaps a little too big, but nothing that couldn't be remedied by chopping a foot off of its base. As Patrick fetched the chainsaw from the car, I noticed a pink ribbon tied around the trunk of the tree. "Doesn't this mean this is on protected county land?" We silently started at each other before bursting into laughter. This was a road that my dad taught me to drive on at twelve years old because you could drive from end to end for hours before seeing another car, let alone a police officer. 20 minutes later, we drove a precariously attached tree back to my house as its tip bobbed comically against the top of Beverly's windshield.

We had never had a more beautiful tree. We haven't had one since.