THE BOOK SHELF: Stories that reflect the magic of Christmas
THE STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS
Writer Thomas King said, “The truth about stories is that we are just that.”
Stories, whether oral or written, have the power to transform our lives, King argued, and once we’ve heard them, they often demand that we respond in return.
Christmas stories in particular can have a strong influence on us. Their truth lies in the joyful, and sometimes not-so-joyful, memories they evoke of the holiday. We also hear sad stories at Christmas, but more often than not we want our stories to reflect the magic of the season when kindness, generosity and hope reign supreme. They inspire us to do good.
Laurie Stanley-Blackwell reminds readers of this in ‘Tis the Season’, one of 54 stories and memories that make up Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 9: A Treasury of Stories and Memories (Breton Books). The book is the ninth in an annual series.
“The next story began on Christmas Eve, when my shopkeeper friend started closing his shop in a small town in Nova Scotia,” writes Stanley-Blackwell. “The day had gone well but now only a few last minute stragglers were left on the sidewalks. He felt a sense of satisfaction and relief as he counted the healthy daily earnings in the register and then began turning off the light. He was already thinking of settling in for the night with a cup of tea and a good book, an evening routine he’d followed faithfully for years.
No worries for him wrapping presents and writing cards on Christmas Eve for a wife and children he didn’t have. He enjoyed the solitary simplicity of his life, uncomplicated by the drama of human relationships. As he walked to the front door, there was a knock on the glass pane. His first instinct was to yell at the stranger, ‘We’re closed.’ But instead he opened the door and called out, ‘Come in. I only have a few minutes left.’ A young man stepped into the bright light of the store, brushing the snow off his shoulders, stamping his boots and rubbing his hands to keep himself warm. For a few minutes, the late-night shopper wandered aimlessly through the store.
‘Can I help you? Are you looking for something specific?’ asked the shopkeeper.
The young man hesitated and then replied, ‘I need a father.’
There was a long pause and their eyes met. To his surprise, my shopkeeper friend replied, ‘I need a son.’ The words, in all their raw honesty and succinctness, caught him off guard. They gushed up from an unknown place, buried deep beneath life’s debris of disappointments and layers of loneliness. A remarkable relationship was forged that night – a relationship that would eventually bring a daughter-in-law and grandchildren into his world. All because a unique version of the nativity scene story came to life on Christmas Eve in the small town of Nova Scotia.”
In A Christmas Man, another story set in Cape Breton’s Christmas, Fran Nunn fondly remembers her father roasting chestnuts over their living room fireplace.
“With a little butter, salt and pepper, these delicious treats still make my mouth water at the memory,” Nunn writes. “Every Christmas Eve we children listened to the radio at 9pm and were thrilled when the radio voice reported on Santa’s progress as he approached Canada. Dad made sure we heard. After the letters to Santa were written, Papa stoked the fire and made sure the up train took the letters straight to the dear old man. There were many tears when a letter accidentally fell into the fire, but Dad patiently encouraged the crying child to write another letter and he stoked the fire even more.”
In his Christmas memoir entitled The Kitchen Coal Stove, Bernard G. Brake recalls a time when coal stoves were burning in every home in the mining towns of Cape Breton.
“The old kitchen range has made all of our holiday meals and especially the Christmas celebrations possible. It cooked the hams, geese, turkey, rabbit pies and stews, not to mention the beautiful, delicious pies and puddings and breads,” writes Brake.
“Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the old charcoal stove. We never feared storms causing power outages because the stove kept us warm, fed us, gave us light and kept the water hot from a boiler tank at the back of the stove.”
Royalties from the sale of Cape Breton’s Christmas go to Feed Nova Scotia. More than $8,000 has already been donated to the organization from sales of the first eight books in the series.
Also on the shelf
Photographer Thaddeus Holownia’s images are combined with Harry Thurston’s poetry in Icarus, Falling of Birds (Anchorage Press) to commemorate the deaths of thousands of migratory songbirds after they fell too close to a Canaport Liquified Natural Gas flare in September 2013 East of Saint John .
Two years later, Canaport LNG claimed responsibility for the bird death and was fined $750,000 under the Migratory Birds Convention Act and the Species at Risk Act.
Author and former politician Peter L. McCreath takes readers back to the 17th century and the founding of Acadia in The First Acadian: A Conversation with Charles de St. Etienne de La Tour (New World Publishing).
La Tour was responsible for building forts and fur trading posts in the Maritime Maine region, particularly Fort La Tour, which is now the site of the town of Saint John.
Joe Howe’s Ghost is a paranormal political thriller film written by Halifax author and former journalist Bretton Loney. It tells the story of Erin Curran, a bright young rookie MLA who has a life-changing encounter with the ghost of Nova Scotia’s most famous politician and journalist.
