While in-person worship on Sunday, December 26th has been cancelled — barring something untoward twixt now and Friday — Kenyon Presbyterian Church’s traditional service on Christmas Eve will get under way at 7:00 p.m. The evening promises to be a joyous one filled with lots of music, singing and giving of thanks. Rev. Jim Ferrier asked me to extend an invitation to all to join them for this special service. On behalf of the congregation of Dunvegan’s church, he also wanted to say that their prayers and hopes are offered for a blessed Christmas and New Year. Please note that Covid-19 protocols will be observed, including masks, hand sanitization and contact tracing registration.
Easterners don’t rate
While we’re on the topic of Covid, have you noticed how Ontario’s eastern boundary is the imaginary line that can be drawn from the west-end of Ottawa to the east side of Kingston? Just go on the Government of Ontario “Rapid Tests Distribution” web page and take a look at which Ontario citizens are more equal than others. Eastern Ontarians aren’t even on the scale.
Xmas trees and gumbo
You can tell the moment you pluck the envelope from the mailbox that the Christmas card in your hand contains a “Family Newsletter.” It has a bit more heft and is a titch springier than the normal greeting card.
Just like social media pages that present the poster’s life as a model of perfection, Christmas family newsletters, albeit inadvertently, often make the recipient feel inadequate. Who can compete with a family so perfect that every one of their children earns straight A’s at school, excels at lacrosse and by the time they finish kindergarten have chalked up 1,000 volunteer hours helping the homeless or saving the planet?
What really irks me is the unsettling feeling that, sometimes, these claims may not be mere bombast. Take a recent Christmas letter we received from an old friend who used to live in Dunvegan many years ago. Here’s a sample: “When spring came, I joined the tennis club and played for two hours three times a week… I was also busy making jam during the spring and summer… I made over 100 jars and sold them for $5 each… the proceeds all went to the church (to) help pay for the new roof they need… When the fitness centres reopened this summer, I joined one within walking distance of my condo, and I work out on the weight machines three times each week… My latest activity is joining a duplicate bridge club.”
What’s even more remarkable is that Joyce Cutts, the woman who wrote this letter, will celebrate her 90th birthday next year. And I have never known her to tell anything but the unvarnished truth… even when I hoped she wouldn’t.
As I mentioned, Joyce was once a Dunveganite. She and her late husband Robb bought the southwest half of Lot 21 Kenyon Con. 9 in 1978. They sold the Dunvegan Road property to Lynn and Bruce MacGillivray in 1993 and moved to Welland, Ontario to be closer to their children. Lynn and Bruce will celebrate their 28th Christmas in Dunvegan this year. Where does the time go?
Joyce concluded her letter with a handwritten note. “It’s been a long time since spending time in Dunvegan. I certainly remember going out and chopping down a Christmas tree. What a tradition we all started.” The tradition Joyce refers to involved Joyce, Robb, Terry, myself and our two kids cutting der Tannenbaum on Cy and Louise Walker’s farm, followed by steaming hot bowls of chicken and okra New Orleans Gumbo and homemade bread in the Walker’s marvelous sunroom. As the song goes… “Those were the days my friend. We thought they’d never end.”
Truffle dog tale
This last item isn’t strictly about Christmas, but it does embody the “peace on earth and goodwill to all” sentiment that is often expressed at this time of Yule. It comes to us courtesy of our old friend Ken McEwen. Born and raised south of Dunvegan, Ken left these parts in the 1950s to join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. While he never returned to Glengarry to live, he did come back briefly to marry his childhood sweetheart Christina (Tina Mae) MacLeod of Skye Road. Their reception was held in what was then the Orange Lodge hall, now the Dunvegan recreation hall.
Ken and Tina Mae loved to travel through Europe. They were especially drawn to places where beverages were brewed, distilled or fermented. Beer, cognac, schnapps, calvados, Armagnac and wine, to name but a few. One memorable trip while in a well-known wine producing area of northern Italy (where truffles also grew), Ken stopped to take a snapshot of photogenic grape vines. In the midst of this Kodak moment, the vineyard’s owner appeared fresh from his fields, carrying a scythe over his shoulder. So Ken photographed him proudly standing amongst his grapes. Ken and his wife knew as little Italian as the farmer did English. Nevertheless, they understood they were invited to his nearby home.
On the way through the farmer’s yard, Ken patted two little rather scruffy dogs on their head and was told they were “cane da tartufo,” which they worked out translated to “dogs that search for truffles.” Over a glass or two of homemade wine, their host communicated that it was unfortunate his son, “un avvocato,” was not there, as he could speak English.
Back in Canada, Ken found that his photo of the Italian viticulturist was a keeper. So he mailed a print to the farmer, along with a note he had asked an Italian-speaking neighbour translate. That Christmas, Ken and Tina Mae received a thank you, in English, signed by the grape grower, his wife, his son and his son’s wife… along with an invitation to return and search
for tartufos. “One never knows what a photograph and patting wee dogs on the head can lead to,” Ken wrote in his email to me. “Just one of so many enjoyable incidents Tina Mae and I experienced in our European travels.”
Buon Natale, Buon Anno
And so we bring one more year to a close. Here’s wishing you a quiet Christmas and an uneventful New Year. Peace on earth and goodwill to all.
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