A Maritime Christmas
The Lunenburg Christmas pageant began with a mellow, curly-furred donkey carrying Mary and a baby to a mock up of a stable at the park downtown. Over 700 people waited in the cold to sing carols and welcome them. The nativity events were followed by a ceremonial Christmas tree lighting. The hillside behind the bandstand was lined with about seventy four-foot tall Christmas trees. The switch was thrown, the lights from all the trees came on and “oooohhhhhh’ was heard all around.
Next day, a couple of hundred children waited on the end of railway wharf. Just before 1pm, a scallop dragger turned into the entrance of the harbour. This boat had a Christmas tree lashed on the bow – and a jolly fellow dressed in red on board. By the time that the boat was tied at the wharf, the kids were just about vibrating with excitement.
Santa appeared on the top deck of the boat and waved to the children. After a feeble attempt to climb down the outside ladder, he was lead by a crewmember inside the upper cabin, and disappeared. After many minutes, Santa came out onto the main lower deck. With a crewmember on each elbow, he was assisted over a jumble of ropes and fishing gear to the boat’s edge. Here, he balanced on the railing and half jumped –was half carried off the boat onto the wharf.
“I thought they were going to drop the old guy in the harbour,” Jim said.
It had taken Santa about twenty minutes to get off the boat. He was greeted with whistles and a round of applause.
As a bonus to our pre-Christmas season, Jim’s cousins invited us on their traditional tree cutting celebration. We began with a nice turkey lunch in a church hall in a village that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. It was in fact, the edge of nowhere – cause after lunch we kept driving further into the scrub to get to the very best Christmas tree farm in Lunenburg County (or that’s what Garth told us). The trees were awesome – symmetrical, thick, nice top, nice base. We are used to picking wild ones from under power lines. God doesn’t make trees this pretty in Alberta.
At the farm, we could have chosen a great tree in less than five minutes, but we filled in time wandering around. It was an excuse to enjoy the day. I asked Garth about the flagging tape on some of the trees. He told us that people come months in advance and pick their tree, mark it with tape and then come back in December to cut it down. Back at the main shed, there was a Christmas tree wrapping machine. The trees are fed into a large cylinder, trunk first. A winch is attached, and the tree is pulled through and wrapped tightly with twine.
Our beautiful tree stands in the corner of our living room. We decided not to buy any decorations for the holidays. We have a ‘country tree’. It was actually quite fun to string popcorn and cranberries and make the garlands. We also collected red berries and pinecones for decorations. And best of all, a new friend of ours, presented us with a collection of dried apple and orange slices on string loops. She also included some cinnamon sticks. We think our tree is a work of art!
Lunenburg County calls itself the “Balsam Fir Christmas tree Capital of the World.” I’ve never thought of Christmas trees as an industry, but it does make sense – where do all those trees come from after all? For the past month, semi trailer loads of string bound Christmas trees have been a common sight on our roads – heading to Florida, the Caribbean, New York, Ontario – all over. They are spreading some Nova Scotia Christmas Cheer.
posted by Michelle & Jim Wiebe at 4:44 a.m.
