Christmas 1941

By: H. Joseph Seward
Wolfville, Nova Scotia

It’s Christmas Eve 2023, and I am thinking about Christmas’s past. This is an account of how I spent Christmas in 1941 in Southport, a small outport in Trinity Bay North, Newfoundland. I was six years old. My two siblings, Marie and Garfield, are four and two, respectively.
Only a little happened during the time leading to Christmas until Friday, December 19th. That’s when our school concert was held at the United Church School. At about 6:30 p.m., the oil lamps were lit, and the reflected light shining through the windows brought all the moms, dads, and some Grandparents rushing to get one of the few available seats. The students were already seated before the lamps were lit. We were the concert stars for at least a few minutes each. Most were excited. Me? Not so much. I had a small speaking part, a recital, but I had a problem; I stuttered severely. And like the old forest of long ago, I was petrified.
The program began with the teacher introducing each student and what that student was to perform. And then it happened. The teacher, Miss Ida White, introduced me. “And now, Joe will give us a short recital.”
That 5-metre walk (about 15 feet) to the raised platform on the stage felt like the longest five miles I would ever walk. Would I remember the lines that Miss White had written for me? When I started talking, would everyone start laughing at me? They had never laughed at my stuttering, but there was always a first time.
I stood on the stage in the glow of the oil lamp and faced the crowded one-room school; the words started to flow hesitantly, as each word seemed as if it was tied to my tongue and pulled out past my lips. Each word came a little easier, and my thirty seconds, which seemed like thirty minutes, ended. I stepped from the stage and was greeted with a rousing round of applause. That’s when I concluded that my future could be better than I thought.
The following day, after dinner, Dad and I went to the woods and cut our Christmas tree. When we came home, my sister Marie and I spent the rest of the afternoon decorating it. After supper, I had a more pleasant event to attend than the one I had attended the previous evening. We gathered with Santa Claus at the United Church School, where we were served a glass of syrup and a biscuit.
At about 8:00 p.m., Santa arrived and sat on the throne, a folding chair. As his assistant called our names, each child walked up and, after kissing Santa, received a gift; we were all so excited. At the end of the evening, a child’s name was randomly drawn. My cousin Ruby Seward’s name was drawn, and she won a small box of chocolates. On her way home, one of the village bullies stole her chocolates. Even the small villages had their bullies. We disbursed to our homes and retired to bed to await the arrival of the real Santa.
The following morning, Christmas Day, I awoke early, went to the kitchen, picked up my stocking, and returned to bed. I emptied my stocking and found the goodies: two or three giant peppermint nobs, large hard candies, half an orange, and half an apple. Next came the piece-de-resistance; my Christmas toy was wrapped in a small paper bag. The body was cone-shaped, like the safety cones one would see on the highways. It was about three inches long and manufactured from a substance I did not know.
Not wanting to wake everyone, I went outside to our back steps, placed the mouthpiece between my lips, took a deep breath, and blew hard. My toy made a sickening sound as the reed flew past me. That was the end of my Christmas present.
Later that day, we had our Christmas dinner: Pork roast with all the trimmings, including Mom’s special pudding, which she poured over the roast until the roasting pan was full. That pudding was my favourite part of the meal.
After dinner, I would go to my Uncle Dick’s Garden, and someone would get the football from Silas Avery. The football was a pig’s bladder, which was cured and blown up. We would play football from Christmas Day until old Christmas Day, January 6th, when the ball would be returned to Silas until next year.
So long as only children played ball, the pig’s bladder worked fine, but as inevitably happens, some older person would give the bladder a swift kick and break our football. We would have to wait until next Christmas to get a new bladder. Silas would later buy us a real football, which was, in fact, a soccer ball.
To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times and the worst of times.” 1941 was one of my best times. Some of the next few years would be unfortunate occasions.
I do not want to leave on a sour note. A comedian once said, “Youth is such a wonderful time in our lives, it’s too bad it’s wasted on the young.”
Have a great Christmas and a prosperous New Year.