It Came Upon a Midnight Clear Barbie

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear Barbie

A debate that occurred regularly in our house could have been called "French Christmas or English Christmas?"  My mother came from Acadian stock and my father's parents were British.

My mother felt Christmas began with everyone who was old enough attending  midnight mass. After mass, you woke up the little ones and the réveillon began.  Rabbit pie was the featured treat.  People went to bed at dawn and turkey dinner was served in the evening of the 25th.

My father wanted everyone to hang stockings and go to bed on Christmas Eve.  Then we could wake up early to open gifts.  (As a child, I interpreted early as 3 AM, not popular but in retrospect a nice meld of the two traditions).  There was children's mass at 9 and we could play with our new toys all day until the turkey dinner was served.

When we were little the English tradition prevailed but, over time, the scheduling got more French.  My brother was an altar boy and my mother was so proud she made him a cassock and surplice of his own.  There was some in the sacristy but they were of dubious hygiene, often needed repair and the right size was not always available.

When he was 9 or possibly 10 years old, he was asked to serve at Midnight Mass.  In those days, mass was in Latin and after the gospel there was a long prayer called the Confiteor.  The altar boys would crouch, heads down, on the floor and recite it with the priest.  The congregation knelt and bowed their heads.  At the end of the prayer, we lifted our heads and three of the four altar boys did too.

But not my brother, he'd fallen asleep. 

Spring Solstice Barbie

Spring Solstice Barbie

A super moon will herald spring this weekend.  It is unfortunate it will be a new moon so there will be no spectacular moonrise to fill me with awe.  The solar system is also planning an eclipse for the spring solstice but it won't be visible in my part of the world.  Unlike the hero in Carol King's song You're so Vain, Barbie will not be traveling to see a 'total eclipse of the sun'.

Anyway, nothing could eclipse Barbie!

Mardi Gras Barbie

Mardi Gras Barbie

What an abject failure this Barbie is!  How did I fail thee?  Let me count the ways.

I wanted a Barbie that would capture the exuberance and life in the celebration of Mardi Gras.  I wanted bright colours, a carnival feel in the ribboned skirt and lightness from the feathered wings; extravagance in the silky skirt and wantonness from the low-cut bodice.

She does have a purple crinoline.  Purple underwear, orange dress, feathered wings, close enough.  We'll ignore the rest.

Coureur des Bois Ken

Coureur des Bois Ken

The Europeans who came to Canada 600 years ago found wealth in many forms.   Cod were so plentiful you could practically walk across the water on their backs and Jacques Cartier wrote that sometimes the cod "stayed his ships".

By the early 1700's, Great Britain's mighty fleets faced a shortage of timber suitable for building new ships.  The forests of the New World were exploitable.

For three hundred years (until silk hats became popular around 1850) hats made from felted beaver fur were fashionable.  The lucrative fur trade was a driving force in the European invasion of Canada and it was powered by intrepid adventurers working for themselves or the Hudson's Bay Company.

They (coureurs des bois, voyageurs, pedleurs, men of the North, eaters of lard)  worked 12 to 14  hour days.  They tended to be small and very strong.  They canoed and portaged trade goods into the interior and then brought the furs back out.  It cannot have been an easy life  and yet 14,000 men made their living this way.

For most, this was seasonal work but there were those who stayed in the woods all winter, hivernants.

In a CBC radio skit, someone asked when the Métis arrived in Canada and a First Nations actor answered wryly, "9 months after the French."