My favourite Christmas story was related to me by a family acquaintance who grew up in an urban setting. We discussed the hard times our families had to deal with during the depression of the 1930s. I was too young to know the experiences directly, but she was old enough to be an aunt. Her story was about the 1931 Christmas: We had little to enjoy that Christmas as my father had been laid off from work. We could not get a traditional turkey and would have to make do with a tube of bologna. We were not looking forward to Christmas day. On Christmas eve, my mother announced that we would all have a bath on Christmas morning and put on our best clothes for Christmas dinner. We all did as told. Just after noon on Christmas day, we were called to dinner. We passed bowls of vegetables, stuffing and gravy around. Mother had heated the bologna in the oven and put it on a platter in front of my father. He had brought out the carving knife and fork kept for our special dinners. Father tu...

I hope you have enjoyed the stories that have been shared here over the past two weeks -- special thanks to the writers!! I think that I'll do this again next year, so please consider sharing a special  memory by emailing  YourMemoriesOfChristmas@gmail.com And with that, here's one final post for this year ... 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave ...

As you may imagine, an old guy like me has a few memories of Christmas past. In the early 1950's, my dad was a BC Forest Service ranger. I was born in Terrace, but that is because my dad had bought an old homestead from one of the Marion brothers downstream from historic Telegraph Creek. Terrace was really the biggest and closest center to Telegraph Creek, although Watson Lake in the Yukon Territory was easier to access at the time. He planned to get his guiding territory going, but that takes a grubstake and a lot of work. We lived on a lookout tower near Bella Coola, but it was too far away from the ranch, so my dad took a job working in a mining camp in the Yukon. The photo shows the camp, and that big white Jones Tent was where my dad was the cook for the drilling crew! Our wall tent was set up closer to Cowley Creek. When the core sample crew was at work we would spend as much time inside the big white wall tent! That seemed so luxurious compared to our tent. Our tent had a bu...

“ Lost a Santa, gained a sister ” -- Linda six Christmas's later “ Is Santa real ?” To a ten-year-old that’s a very important question.     I talked it over with Roger, my six-year-old brother.   We’d heard whispers from older kids at school.   There was no Santa, they said.   “ It’s all made up. Your parents do everything. They buy the presents, stuff the stockings. They hide presents away so you won’t see them, then stay up late Christmas Eve to put them under the tree. ”     We weren’t sure what to think.   We couldn’t imagine many hiding places we didn’t know about in our log cabin.   Who ate the tea and cookies we left for Santa?   “ That’s easy ” scoffed the big kids. “ Your Dad !”     And the carrots for the reindeer?   Where did they go?   “ Back into the cellar, of course !”   We couldn’t accept that.   We didn’t involve our four-year-old brother Buddy in these discussio...

This story is one that was taped by Darlene Brown-John Heal in 1997. Said Darlene, “ It was told to me by Alice (Reid) Racher. Alice figured she was about nine years old at the time. I loved this Christmas story and was so pleased when I found this photograph at the Horsefly Museum to go with our story !”   In the (Cariboo) village of Horsefly, the Hockley girls were busy getting ready for a trip up the Black Creek Valley to spend Christmas with their parents, Dick and Alice Hockley.  At that time of the year, no cars traveled the Black Creek Road, and the only transport was by sleigh.   Everyone wanted to go to the ranch for Christmas! Lloyd and Dorothy Walters were living at the Walters Ranch, and Lloyd had two big teams of horses, and he lent the family one team and his hired hand to drive. The horses were hitched to the big hay rack where a wall tent had been set up on the deck with crates to sit on and some hay for the children to lay on. Plus, a wood stove, chimn...

  He was probably the best loved Christmas present we children ever had.     One year, when all the presents had been opened, our parents announced that there was one more and brought in a cardboard box. Inside it a small, brown, floppy-eared puppy looked up at us eagerly.   Our first dog! We couldn't believe it.   We had him out of that box immediately.   After much patting and playing the puppy, tired from all the enthusiasm, fell asleep with his head on my brother's knee.     Roger turned to me and whispered, " I'm not going to move until he wakes up !"   He didn't.   He sat very still, solemn, and happy.   How old were we that Christmas?   Four, six and eight seems about right.   Young enough not to question where the puppy had been hidden.   (It's not easy, believe me, to hide a dog, however small, in a three-room log cabin.)   Was he out in the chicken house? Down in the barn?   And...