In the words of the legendary Paul McCartney,
The party’s on
The feeling’s here
That only comes,
This time of year
Simply having a wonderful Holiday history time!
I may have changed some lyrics at the end, but you get the point.
This is the time of year when Santa comes to town so what better way to celebrate than by looking at Canada’s rich holiday traditions.
From the first tree, to just how St Nick got his famous postal code, there are some wonderful tidbits to share.
So, on Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet and Cupid… well you know the rest
I’m Craig Baird, and this is Canadian History Ehx [TRANSITION]
Today… I’m doing things a little bit differently.. Instead of looking at a single topic chronologically I’m going to jump around a bit and give you a stocking full of fun historical snacks
And before you get a sentimental feeling let’s begin by rocking around the Christmas tree!
The modern Christmas tree originated in Central Europe sometime in the 16th Century whenProtestant Christian reformer Martin Luther said to add lighted candles to an evergreen tree.
According to the story, he was the first person to be inspired to do this as he walked home through a forest one winter evening. He was in awe of the stars twinkling amongst evergreen trees so he put one up in his home, with lighted candles on the branches sometime in the early-1500s however beyond this story there’s no real evidence that he did this..
German Lutherans in 1539, were the first to officially place lighted candles on an evergreen and it is from them that Canada gets its connection to the Christmas tree.
At a party hosted by the Baroness Riedesel for British and German officers on Dec. 24, 1781, in Sorel, Quebec the first official Christmas tree in North America was erected. .
The previous years had been tough for the Baroness and her family.
Her husband Frederick was taken prisoner during the American Revolutionary War in 1777 and wouldn’t be released until 1780.
During those dark years, the Baroness had seen men terribly injured in battle, many of whom she attended to by doing what she could to help including providing food but it was a challenging time
She also nearly died in a fire at her home.
By 1781 her husband was home and better days were on the horizon, and she hoped to brighten everyone’s mood with a Christmas tree.
This would also be the first time in four years the Baroness would be able to celebrate with a party so after her guests finished their English pudding, she had a Balsam fir tree, cut from the forest outside, put in the corner of the dining room.
It was decorated with fruits and lit with candles, making it the first official Christmas tree in North America.
At this point, I would like to stress that it takes particular skills to put lit candles on your Christmas tree so unless you know what you’re doing maybe skip that tradition.
After the Baroness’ efforts, Christmas trees didn’t spread like wildfire across the nation… sure German immigrants set them up during the late-18th and early 19th centuries, but the tradition expanded slowly.
Canada’s upper class, for the most part, ignored the tradition until Queen Victoria and her German husband Prince Albert put up a tree in Windsor Castle in 1841.
The monarch was a trend setter, first she made white wedding dresses a staple of matrimonial union and then made Christmas trees fashionable sothe tradition picked up steam in Canada.
By the mid-19th century, Christmas tree were on display in many Canadian homes and until the early 20th century, candles,l fruits, and crafts were used to decorate them.
During this time the tradition was helped by innovation when in 1896, the first electrically lit Christmas tree was unveiled in Westmount, Quebec, 16 years after Thomas Edison introduced the first outdoor electric Christmas light display.
Businesses around Canada strung Christmas lights in their windows in major cities around 1900.
As homes became wired with electricity in the 1910s and 1920s, trees were decorated with electric cone-shaped bulbs and cardboard and wax ornaments began to appear.
Tinsel and tin reflectors were first sold in the 40s and added more sparkle and magic.
Then ten years late bubble Lites became very popular whichs produced bubbles in lit glass tubes. My parents had these lights when I was a kid, and they were very pretty on a tree as they simulated candles.
They were also apparently a pretty big fire hazard.
If you’ve been to Canada’s vast and beautiful wilderness it should come as no surprise that it is one of the world’s biggest exporters with 70,000 acres of Christmas tree farms from whichthree to six million trees are harvested and about half are exported across North & Central America.
As large as the industry is now, it wasn’t always the case.
Over a century ago, in 1898, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia began to ship out Christmas trees to the United States.
In 1905, the first trees from New Brunswick were sent out.
As the tradition became more popular Christmas tree exports increased and by1924, 50 car loads left Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and the entire province exported 300,000 trees in total.
People harvested and sold the trees for 2.3 cents each on average, but companies they sold to heavily marked up the price and mademassive profitswhich began to worry forestry companies in Canada One forestry company representative said in the 1920s:
“Cutting down the young trees is the worst form of timber waste.”
Canadian Christmas tree exports reached a high of 3.8 million in 1957 and from then on the industry began to decline as other countries started to produce their own.Exports fell to 2.6 million in 1963 and 1.8 million in 1967.
Today, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Ontario account for 80 per cent of Canada’s Christmas Tree production with 2,400 farms valued at $78 million.
The land used to harvest all those Christmas trees is land that First Nations lived in freely prior to the arrival of European settlers.
After Samuel de Champlain established Quebec City in 1608, there was a concerted effort by Jesuit missionaries to convert Indigenous people to Christianity.
Some of the earliest converts were the Wendat, also known as the Huron, who relied on trading with the French who refused to trade with First Nations that did not have relations with missionaries.
To get weapons and tools that gave them an advantage over other nations, the Wendat were open to missionaries visiting their settlements.
One method of conversion was to relate the story of Jesus’ birth to the Wendat.
Jean de Brebeuf, a Jesuit Missionary, adapted the story which became the Huron Carol around 1641.
Written in the language of the Wendat, it is titled Jesous Ahatonhia, translated as Jesus, he is born.
In the carol, Jesus is wrapped in a rabbit skin, and rather than a manger he is born in a lodge made of broken bark.
The three wise men became chiefs, and they didn’t bring gold frankincense and myrrh. Instead, they arrived with fox and beaver pelts for the baby.
The carol slowly spread among the Wendat in the 1650s and 1660s.
On Christmas Eve in 1668, a Wendat girl named Therese, only 14-years-old, sang about the birth of Jesus as she died. Her death was likely due to a European-borne disease, which many of the Jesuit missionaries transmitted without realizing it.
Francois-Joseph Le Mercier, a priest, wrote a letter to his superiors in France, detailing how she sang as she died andthis is the earliest written mention of the Huron Carol, introduced 20 years earlier to the Wendat people.
By this point, the Wendat population had fallen from 25,000 people before European arrival, to 12,000 in the 1660s.
In 1697, the Wendat settled in a village north of Quebec City called Lorette. The village exists today and is known as Wendake but for centuries, each Christmas, the Wendat people gathered in the Catholic church and sang the Huron Carol in their language.
The Huron carol has spread and inspired four picture books, a national series of stamps in 1977, and appeared on several albums by musicians such as Heather Dale, Crash Test Dummies and Bruce Cockburn.
However, the Wendat language slowly disappeared due to the prevalence of French in the area and by the 1850s, there were no living speakers.
One of the few occasions when the language was heard was when the Huron Carol was sung at Christmas because it continues to be sung in Wendat even though many don’t understand the words.
That was the story of Huron Carol, but did you know the first official Christmas Carol in Canadian history was published by James P. Clarke in 1853?
Clarke was an organist and composer, cited as the first person to receive a bachelor’s degree in music in North America.
As conductor of the Toronto Choral Society, he published A Canadian Christmas Carol in Anglo-Canadian Magazine in 1853.
It is not an easy carol to find these days, but it begins as follows:
No shepherds in the fields tonight,
No flock up on the wold
Though the shivery forest,
Bran chesmoans,
The north blast fierce and cold
But gloriously the white stars gleam
As on that holy event,
When the herald angles chorus swelled,
Through the bright Judean heaven.[1]
Personally, I prefer Bob and Doug McKenzie’s 12 Days of Christmas. There aren’t many Christmas carols or songs I can handle, their version is the greatest Christmas song of them all.
The original dates to sometime in the 1700s and is believed to be either English or French. The earliest known written version of the song appeared in 1780. TMany locations, including Sweden, France, and the Faroe Islands have their own version of the song which has been recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Muppets.
As I mentioned, the best version, in my opinion, is by Bob and Doug McKenzie, the two hoser characters created by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. Their Great White North segments on SCTV exploded in popularity in 1980 and resulted in a comedy album, movie, toys, commercials and more.
Their 12 Days of Christmas was released on the album The Great White North in 1981 whichwas a huge success, selling one million copies, and winning a Juno & earning a Grammy nomination andtwo songs appeared on the Top 40 Rock Charts, Take Off! and The Twelve Days of Christmas, which reached number 15 on the Canadian charts.
The song follows the duo as they do a comedic rewrite of the popular Christmas carol.
Unfortunately, they only make it only as far as Day 8 before they decide the song is long enough.
At the end of the song, Bob compares it to Stairway to Heaven.
I think that is a pretty good comparison.
Less than a decade before Bob and Doug made the best Christmas song ever… Popular singer-songwriter from Newfoundland Bud Davidge wrote “The Mummer’s Song” as a tribute to a centuries-old custom in danger of disappearing. Mummering originated in England and Ireland, and eventually found its way to Newfoundland and Labrador.
Also known as janneying or mumming, it involves a group of friends dressing in disguise and visiting homes during the twelve days of Christmas.
As they knock on the door, the mummers ask, “Any mummers ‘lowed in?”
If the mummers are welcomed into the home, they give informal performances. These can include music, jokes, dancing and more.
The hosts in the home then must determine the identity of the mummers.
The mummers will try to fool the hosts by cross dressing, stuffing their costumes to change their body shape, speaking while inhaling, wearing masks and more.
Once the identities of the mummers are confirmed, they are offered food and drink.
The idea is that by lifting the mask, the stranger becomes a friend.
In the past, mummers carried codfish bladders blown up like balloons. These were filled with pebbles to create a rattling sound.
It is now more common for these “ugly sticks” to be broomsticks with bottle caps attached to them. A rubber boot is added at the bottom to create a head, with tin cans and a mop for hair.
In 2009, the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Office established the Mummers Festival. This is held in St. John’s and includes a Mummers Parade.
In 2011, Mummering was designated as a Distinctive Cultural Tradition and Practice by the Newfoundland and Labrador government.
Along with mummering, Newfoundland has also given us the unofficial holiday of Tibb’s Eve a.
Tibb’s Eve, also known as Tipp’s Eve or Tipsy Eve, originated from the character of Saint Tibb, described as a woman of loose morals, from a 17th-century English play.
The irony is that such a character could not be a saint and would not have a feast day.
With no actual Tibb’s Day, there can be no Tibb’s Eve and is called non-time becauseit is a day that will never come.
To say something will happen on Tibb’s Eve is to say it will never happen.
Tibb’s Eve eventually found its way to Newfoundland, where it was called a day that was neither before nor after Christmas.
It became an unofficial holiday around the Second World War, occurring sometime between the old year and the new and eventually, became associated with Dec. 23.
The reason it fell on that night was that it was the first night during Advent when it was appropriate to have a drink, hence Tipsy Eve.
It’s a day to drink and eat at kitchen parties and bars with the people you want to celebrate with like friends… before obligations take over.
Around 2010, bar owners in St. John’s adopted the holiday by hosting Tibb’s Eve events. It was also organized into a fundraising effort in Newfoundland by organizations such as the St. John’s Women’s Centre when they host the Shine Your Light On Tibb’s Eve event.
Today, the tradition of Tibb’s Eve has spread outside Newfoundland to Nova Scotia, Toronto, and Northern Alberta.
Another common Newfoundland tradition is the Yule log.
It is now a very tasty dessert enjoyed during the Christmas season but when it first emerged in Europe, primarily England it wasn’t something you ate but instead something you burned.
On Christmas Eve, typically at sunset, a large block of birch wood was laid across the back of a fireplace.
The family waited until the fire consumed the entire log and once it was gone, they would go t outside and fire their muskets as a prelude to Christmas.
As settlers from the United Kingdom came to Newfoundland and Canada, they brought the tradition with them.
On Dec. 24, 1770, a British Army Officer named Captain George Cartwright wrote of how residents of Lodge Bay, Labrador celebrated Christmas Eve, “At sunset the people ushered in Christmas, according to the Newfoundland custom. In the first place, they built up a prodigious large fire in their house; all hands then assembled before the door, and one of them fired a gun, loaded with powder only; afterwards each of them drank a dram of rum; concluding the ceremony with three cheers. These formalities being performed with great solemnity, they retired into their house, got drunk as fast as they could, and spent the whole night in drinking, quarreling, and fighting.”
The Yule log was sometimes called birch junk and was selected to last the 12 days of Christmas. It was hauled home and cut into three-foot chunks to fit into the hearth at the base of the chimney.
A very interesting part of the tradition involved the Yule log being taken out of the fireplace and thrown over the saddle of the roof to bring protection from fire through the coming year.
Unfortunately, my research didn’t tell me just how many fires were startedbecause someone couldn’t throw the burning Yule log completely over.
Regardless ,the tradition of the Yule log began to disappear with the invention of the stove in the 1870s, but Parisian pastry chefs ensured the tradition was not entirely forgotten by reimagining the log in cake form.
Pierre Lacam is widely credited with publishing the first recipe for the bûche de Noël, a rich, airy sponge cake — sandwiched together with coffee- or chocolate-flavoured buttercream to create a log shape.
Food is central to any Christmas tradition and there’s one that has since faded, which is unfortunate, is Paying For the Christmas Cake.
In the 19th and early-20th century, the practice of Paying For the Christmas Cake was held among family and friends.
Using a deck of cards, friends and family played to determine who was going to pay for flour. The losers of the game contributed the money for flour, while the winner didn’t pay anything.
The next day they played for raisins, with the losers paying for the raisins and the winner not paying at all.
The series of games continued each night leading up to Christmas, with various ingredients needed for the cake.
Once the ingredients were collected, the group came together to bake the cake and enjoy it together at a party.
This Newfoundland tradition has mostly vanished now.
They say that the fastest way to someone’s heart is through their stomach and a month before Christmas on Nov. 25, is the feast day of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. the patron saint of unmarried women.
This is a day to celebrate with taffy..
St. Catherine’s Taffy is a candy made by girls in French-Canadian communities, which they present to boys in their community.
The tradition dates to Marguerite Bourgeoys, who founded Notre-Dame de Montreal in 1657. She was a nun and teacher in Montreal, and she is credited with creating the tradition as a way of keeping the attention of her young students.
Much like paying for the christmas cake this tradition has almost disappeared as well
But one thing that will never go away is the tradition of celebrating with loved ones and in Quebec, families come together for a long-established custom that dates to the 1700s.
A réveillo is a long dinner held in the evening preceding Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve.
Its name descends from the word réveil (meaning “waking”), because participation involves staying awake until morning, as the meal finishes.
Réveillon was first documented in the 1700s in France. Back then, it was a night-long dinner party held by French nobles.
As time went on, it was adapted into a Christmas Eve/New Year’s Eve celebration by French-Canadians andtypically includes a variety of tourtière and dates back about 200 years
Tourtiere is a meat pie dish from Quebec, usually made with minced pork, veal or beef and potatoes and washed down withChampagne or other sparkling wines.
Traditionally, Réveillon began with Midnight Mass and the party continued until Christmas morning when the children woke up to open presents. Planning began in the middle of November for lavish dishes, the best the family could afford as animals were butchered for the feast and their meat frozen to preserve it.
Delicacies such as black pudding and pâtés were also included. Today, Réveillon includes tourtière but also lobster from Nova Scotia, lavish desserts, Swiss roll cakes and more.
In the 1990s, Quebec restaurants started to serve Réveillon dinners at a more sociable time.
Christmas and New Year’s Day réveillons differ in that Christmas is traditionally a Christian occasion, celebrated within the family, and this tradition is held true even among non-believers.
The New Year’s Eve, or Saint-Sylvestre, réveillon, on the other hand, is commonly a party with friends, etc.
In many provinces of Canada, the ritual of ‘Sinck Tuck’ is also followed. Much like the reveillon this is when families get together, dance and open each other’s gifts. The celebration of Sinck Tuck is traditionally linked to the winter solstice. Over time, it became associated with Christmas as well.
Sinck Tuck meals included caribou, raw fish, seal and other traditional foods enjoyed in the Canadian North.to celebrate the Christmas season and the halfway point of winter.
For two centuries, forts dotted the land that became present-day Canada.
From Hudson Bay to the Pacific Coast. In the summer, the posts were hubs of activity, with people coming and going through the spring, summer, and autumn.
During the winter, things changed.
It was cold, dark and, many times, lonely.
Yet much like Sinck Tuck it was a time to celebrate Christmas and the midway point in winter.
Thomas Gorst was a Hudson’s Bay Company employee in 1670, working at Charles Fort along Hudson Bay.
He wrote of a Christmas attended by the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company Charles Bayly, and prominent fur traders Medard Chovart de Groseillers and Pierre-Esprit Radisson.
He wrote,
“25 being Christmas Day, having for liquor brandy and strong beer, and food plenty of partridges and venison besides what ye ships provisions afforded.”
That sounds like a good time, but sometimes there was more than just drinking and meat.
Depending on what was available in the cupboards, there were also tasty desserts.
A journal entry from 1789 at Manchester House, in present-day Saskatchewan, reads,
“This being Christmas morning, our small stock of flour afforded us cake to eat, with a little tea and chocolate.”
If the year was bad, there would be few supplies.
At Osnaburgh House, located in Northern Ontario south of Hudson Bay, a journal records,
“A poor Christmas day at Osnaburgh. Very little victuals to eat and nothing to drink but water.”
Victuals is another word for food such as game birds like turkey.
One of my favourite stories related to fur trading forts and Christmas comes from Paul Kane, one of the greatest painters in Canadian history.
A self-educated artist, he trained by copying European masters.
He took two journeys into the Canadian West in 1845 and 1846 to 1848.
On that second journey he stayed at Fort Edmonton and on Christmas Day 1847, there was a very big celebration which started when the flag was hoisted in the best and grandest style.
By noon, every chimney in the fort was going full blast, and the smell of cooking filled the air. Everyone sat down for dinner at 2 p.m. in the dining hall, which was the biggest room in the fort which was warmed by large fires that were never allowed to go out.
For Christmas dinner, there wasn’t any turkey or canned cranberries, instead they ate what they were able to hunt.
There was boiled bison hump and dried moose nose, with white fish browned in bison marrow. Bison tongue was also enjoyed, as was roast wild goose served alongside potatoes, turnips, and bread.
But there was no desserts, and Kane wrote,
“Such was our jolly Christmas dinner at Edmonton, and long will it remain in my memory. Although no pies, puddings shed their fragrances over the scene.”
Following dinner, there was a dance and local Indigenous People, likely Cree, joined as did voyageurs who wore bright sashes and ornamented moccasins.
At the dance, many different languages including Cree and French were spoken, while English was predominant at the dinner table among the higher-ranking members of the fort.
Paul Kane said he danced through the night and then once Christmas was over, it was back to waiting for the long winter to pass.
I grew up outside of Edmonton and I can assure you, in the words of Phil Connor from Groundhog Day, there are some winters here that feel like they are never going to end.
That is why the holiday season brightens our spirits as we spend time with loved ones, and for children this can feel magical.
Especially if Santa is involved.
If you are Canadian, and you write him a letter it goes to a specific address:
Santa Claus
North Pole
H0H 0H0
This is probably the most famous postal code in Canada and originatess to 1973 when a few Canada Post employees in Vancouver began to answer letters addressed to Santa which had arrived toundeliverable mail office headquarters . Vancouver was the headquarters for Western Canada, and they received 4,000 letters in 1973.
There are undeliverable offices for each region in Canada and with nowhere for the letters to go, because typically, the letters were simply addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole”.
Canada Post employees decided to bring joy to the lives of Canadian children by replying and this became aa small local effort to start with, but it soon spread across Canada to other Canada Post offices.
In 1982, it became a nationwide project with the famous postal code H0H 0H0 was born.
Postmaster Roy Debolt had the idea to make Christmas a little warmer and more complete for children who wrote to Santa Claus.
Many of the first volunteers were retired Canada Post employees.
Between 1982 and 2006, thousands of postage workers, both current and retired, volunteered to answer 14 million letters from Canadian children.
By 2010, that number had grown to 18.5 million and today, over 25 million letters from children all over the world and in many different languages – including braille have been answered by Santa’s helpers at Canada Post
The postal code is just further proof that Santa Claus has a home in Canada.
Speaking of Santa Claus, each year he makes the journey to Toronto to take part in one of the largest parades in North America.
The original Santa Claus Parade owes its existence to Eaton’s, an iconic chain department store that has now been gone for over 20 years.
The first parade in 1904 consisted simply of Santa walking a few blocks from Union Station to the Eaton’s store in downtown Toronto.
One year later, the first official Santa Claus Parade was held on Dec. 2, 1905, and consisted of one float. Once again, Santa went from Union Station to the Eaton’s store.
These early parades were a huge hit and each year crowds, and the number of floats, grew.
From 1910 to 1912, the parade was held over the course of two days. Starting about 60 km north in Newmarket on Friday afternoon, stopped overnight at York Mills, and then continued to Eaton’s on Saturday afternoon.
The parade became big enough that in 1913, trained caribou from Labrador were used to pull Santa’s sled.
In 1917, Santa arrived in Toronto by plane for the first time.
From the 1920s to 1960s, the floats used in the Toronto Santa Claus Parade were then reused for the Montreal Santa Claus Parade. This stopped in 1969 and resumed in the 1990s.
Punkinhead – a rubbery toy bear with orange hair made his debut in 1947. He was the main character in books published by Eaton’s to promote sales.
By the 1950s, the parade grew so large that the Eaton’s Merchandise Display Department worked all year to build floats, costumes and displays.
In 1952, the parade was televised for the first time, and in 1970 colour broadcasts began and ran on CBC from 1952 to 1981.
Eaton’s was the company behind the parade for decades until the late-1970s, when the changing retail market cut into the company’s profits and by 1982, Eaton’s ended its association with the parade due to declining profitsand the high cost of the parade.
This when the Save Our Parade campaign was organized and about 20 corporate sponsors stepped up to keep it running.
Global TV broadcasted the Parade from 1984 to 2009 and from 1989 to 1991, Santa appeared from Toronto to delight children in the Soviet Union .
Since 2010, the parade has been broadcast by CTV and draws over 500,000 people along its 6.3 kilometres route. It is one of the largest parades in North America, and one of the world’s oldest annual parades… much older than its more famous cousin south of the border… the Macy’s Santa Claus Parade
Speaking of Eaton’s, along with their legendary parade, the department store was known for its amazing Christmas window displays.
From the start of the 20th century to the 1970s, Eaton’s and its main rival in Toronto, Simpsons, tried to one-up each other with their window displays.
For decades that rivalry grew and each company tried to outdo the other, especially at their flagship stores in Toronto.
Following the Second World War, Eaton’s stores around Canada, but primarily in Toronto and Winnipeg, had elaborate displays featuring Christmas scenes and figures whichwere built by Second World War veterans and aircraft technicians. These animatronic displays were powered by war surplus motors. The figures danced and pranced in the display for three decades.
Some families drove hours to see the displays outside Eaton’s and Simpsons stores The Globe and Mail wrote, “you will see a crowd of children intent on the magic world before them.”
They became so popular that Toronto city officials asked Eaton’s and Simpsons to limit the hours the public could view the displays because the crowds on Queen Street were slowing down traffic.
In 1959, designers Eleanor and Ted Konkle prepared a 12 Days of Christmas display for Eaton’s in Toronto, which included each item mentioned in the song.
In 1966, Eaton’s brought in a 34-foot-long model representing the scene of Jesus Christ’s birth from Czechoslovakia that took artist Adolph Jelinek 10,000 hours and over 35 years to paint.
As mentioned earlier, the retail world was hit by the 1980s, and the displays began to disappear from both companies. Then Simpsons’ stores were converted to The Bay in the 1980s and by 1991 the name disappeared altogether.Eatons lasted a little longer but was bankrupt by the end of the 1990s.
Christmas isn’t the only holiday celebrated in December in Canada.
Kwanzaa is an African American cultural holiday that comes from a phrase in Swahili, matunda ya kwanza, which means first fruits.
It first emerged in the United States in 1966-67, and has since spread around the world.
Kwanzaadraws on many harvest festivals in Africa and it begins on Dec. 26 and continues until Jan. 1..
Soon after Kwanzaa was established in the United States, it spread to Canada and today, it is widely celebrated throughout the country.
Another important holiday, is also one of the oldest, Chanukkah whichwas first widely celebrated in Canada around 1760 whenJews were permitted to immigrate to British North America for the first time.
It is believed to be the first non-Christian settler holiday to be celebrated in Canada and it is observed for eight nights and days, according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar.
The festival is observed by lighting the candles of a candelabrum with nine branches, also known as a menorah. Each night, one candle is lit until all eight candles are lit together on the final night of the festival.
Families get together to sing Hanukkah songs, playing the game of dreidel and eating oil-based foods, such as latkes or potato pancakes and sufganiyot which are pillowy donuts filled with jam.
As with other holiday traditions in Canada the type of food enjoyed depends on where families immigrated from. They celebrate by coming together to socialize, exchange gifts and eat. .
In 2011, two stamps were issued by Canada Post to honour Chanukah.
Before I leave you I want to share one final story about a very special Christmas tree which Halifax gives to Boston every year.
On the morning of Dec. 6, 1917,the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the Halifax harbour.
Loaded with explosives , the Mont-Blanc caught fire and exploded with a 2.9 kiloton blast.
It was the largest man-made explosion before the atomic bomb and destroyed nearly every building in an 800-metre radius, killing 1,700 people and injuring 9,000 others
Boston immediately stepped up to help.
Train loads of food, furniture, clothing, medical supplies, doctors, and nurses arrived in Halifax almost immediately.
In 1918, , Halifax sent a Christmas tree as a thank you to the people of Boston
The tradition was revived by the Lunenburg County Christmas Tree Producers Association in 1971 and the Nova Scotia government eventually took over the Christmas tree tradition.
Nova Scotia citizens nominate trees trees that are typically balsam fir, or red or white spruce that are 40 to 50 feet tall..Once the tree is chosen which is considered a great honour in the province, the cutting down ceremony is televised and the tree becomes the main part of the Nova Scotia Christmas Parade.
After the parade, the tree is sent 1,000 kilometres on a truck to Boston.
On Nov. 30 or Dec. 1, the Mayor of Boston and the Premier of Nova Scotia light Boston’s official Christmas tree together.
After the Christmas season, the tree is put into mulch to help grow gardens in Boston the following year.
Thank you for joining me on this journey…
Faithful friends who are dear to us who gather near to us once more
I hope through the years we all will be together
If the Fates allow
Until next time… yourself a merry little holiday time…
