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Morning Song

Morning Song

By Jim Provencher

Waking to predawn summer stillness,
A pleasant coolness, the town asleep in river fog.
A few night-perch birdcalls try the darkness,
throat-clearing chortles, signalling, I’m here.
Adrift in the night, whirring and whispering
an overture of small sibilant cries.

This tentative faltering reminds me
I have less to say but something to sing.
Nothing better than to plumb the silence,
sound the darkness, join fellow first singers,
shy twittering gabbers whose prompt churring
cheers me to know in singing not to sing.
So I launch a high whining trill, chiming
dawn songs begun in darkness and delight.

My Christmases

My Christmases

By Leo Racicot

When I was a boy, a must do every Christmas was to go downtown to see the holiday lights on City Hall, and the manger display in front of it. Papa would take Diane and me down to see it. In those days, the entire facade, including the sides of the building, every inch of it, it seemed, were covered in multi-colored lights — a real treat for the eyes, eye-popping. It was and is still a tradition of many years standing although the lights are sparser, framing the edges of the edifice, and are all-white. The creche is looking its age and lacks the luster and serenity of when I saw it in the ’60s. But I looked forward every November of each year to being able to view it in all its festive glory. After the viewing, Papa (or Mama) would head us over to The Bon Marche Department Store on Merrimack Street, to its Toy Department on the 4th or 5th floor (I forget which). I know that, to reach it, we got to ride in the old-fashioned elevator conveyance, with the iron latticed cage,  complete with elevator operator. He seemed ancient to my young eyes and  I loved watching him pull open the accordion-like cage to let us in, announcing the floors and which goods could be found there. “Third floor! Ladies garments and Millinery!  Third floor!” I thought it was cool that the elevator said, Product of Otis Elevator Company; Aunt Marie worked in the Lowell office for Wilbur Bailey, whom we’d run into every summer browsing The Sunday Lowell Sun at Hampton Beach parking lot. In the Toy Department, Diane and I would go wild (well, as wild as our parents would let us which wasn’t much), so excited were we to see miniature trains, dolls, Easy Bake Ovens, cowboy outfits, bicycles, the colors, the lights, everything. Bob Clark’s 1983 comedy chestnut, A Christmas Story, offers a perfect depiction of the excitement inherent in this type of annual thrill in the scene where Ralphie stares, eyes agog with awe, at the many treasures to be had in the window of Higbee’s Department Store.  After, Diane and I would be taken to see Santa Claus, as I recall, a terrifying experience the first time involving instant tears and screams, but a visit to be looked forward to in ensuing years; getting to tell the kindly, bearded old fellow what we wanted for Christmas and to assure him we’d been “good, little children all year long”.

After the Santa visit, at home, Mama would go about putting stencil decorations on each window of our house, using Glass Wax. I don’t think stores even sell this product anymore!

As she did on Thanksgiving, Marie collected the three of us in her Rambler around 11 a.m. for a Christmas Day meal complete with all the trimmings. More than the food, I looked forward to visiting the different apartments she and Nana occupied in The Highlands section of the city. My favorite was the house on Branch Street with  its enormous, screened-in porch. Their landlady, Agnes Bogosian, was a large, hospitable bubbe of a woman, and always brought up for us exotic treats from her Armenian kitchen,

odd-looking pastries, candies from Ashtarak, the city she’d emigrated from. One item I bit into and was sorry I had was a ball of raw hamburger stuffed with peanut butter and garlic cloves, not a taste sensation I’d care to repeat. Agnes always smelled of garlic but in a good, kitchen-y way and would let loose with a big Ghost of Christmas Present laugh. Later, Marie moved herself and Nana to an apartment across from Tyler Park, a park I liked for its quiet serenity. While waiting for dinner, Marie would let Diane and me go for a walk there. I loved the sound of our boots crunching on the snow and the birds feeding beneath the trees. Their last residence was on South Walker Street where her landlords were Roland and Doris Phinney, who Marie always seemed to be at odds with. In years to come, the Phinneys’ son, Doug would gain local notoriety when he was accused of bashing in the head of a ULowell female college student with his camera. She lived in the house next door. While she slept in her bed. She caught Doug  in her room, peeping, clicking pictures of her. Diane worked with Doug at Astro Circuit and always said how creepy he could be, forever sneaking photos of her and other workers. Doug was tried, found guilty and spent many years in prison but on appeal was found not guilty and released. So, there was never a dull moment at Marie’s at Christmastime. We came to take for granted the always-scrumptious repasts she made us, the carols on the radio and record player. She always kept the house too warm but the warmest warmth came from being with Nana. If I close my eyes, I can still hear my grandmother’s clear-as-a-mountain-stream soprano as she sang along with the Christmas music. If she didn’t always know the words, she embraced the spirit of them. I’m finding words fail me here to describe the treasure she was, the love she emanated, the acceptance, her uncomplaining embrace of all that Life offered, the good and the bad surprises. I loved being in her presence. Nana was a one-woman safe house sanctuary against the blitzkriegs of childhood. Her presence made every Christmas special.

I’ll never forget the year aluminum Christmas trees came into vogue; Diane and I begged and begged our mother to buy one. She finally gave in. The branches of the aluminum trees were silver. They came with a color wheel. The colors of ours were red, blue, green and orange. The color wheel was placed on the floor at the base of the tree, aimed at the branches which made the silver twinkle and shimmer in those particular  colors. It was lovely to look at. At first. But we soon got tired of it. For one thing, the tree didn’t look so good if decorated with lots of multi-colored ornaments and lights, the way a real Christmas tree did. Ornament balls for the silver tree were of solid colors: all red or all blue or all what-have-you. Diane and I got bored with looking at it. After a couple of years, we told Ma we wanted to go back to a pine tree. She explained that the aluminum had cost so much, we were going to get as much use out of it as we could. So, year after year, that aluminum tree stayed, and stayed, and stayed. It did, after a number of years, begin to fade, lose its visual appeal, and became somewhat depressing to look at in its little corner of the living room. Ma finally relented and replaced it with a real tree. Phew!

I’ve written about The Christmas of the Bicycle before. I woke extra early one Christmas morning to find an English racer taking up most of the living room. It didn’t fit under the tree but seeing it, I literally gasped at the wonder of it. It was the most beautiful bike I’d ever seen. I was nine years old and kept scratching my head as to how Santa had gotten it down the chimney. The very idea of it was magical. Of course, Mamma was the magic but I didn’t know that. Not then. Magical, too, was when, every Christmas morning when the cookies she’d left for Santa Claus on our kitchen table the night before had been eaten, the milk, drunk. Years later, Ma admitted she’d been the one who’d eaten the snack even though she was not a fan or either cookies or milk.  I said to her, “But how come you didn’t just throw the food and milk away!” and she said, “In the Depression, we were taught never to waste good food.”

I still look back with fondness on the holiday gatherings Joe and his family included me in. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so well or found myself in the middle of such a spirited group of folks. One Christmas, Joe’s nephew, Peter, enlisted me as his coloring book partner and we must have worn down a couple of boxes of Crayola crayons. I remember Peter, who was maybe 5 or 6, chastising me, “You’re bearing down too hard, Leo!” Meanwhile, Joe was caught up in the obligatory holiday task of watching the same Christmas movie over and over with his nieces until dinner was ready  “Can we watch it once more, Uncle Joey!  Pleeez, can weeee?!!”  Joe’s mother, who was, God Bless her, the world’s foremost authority on fretting, and who was always worried for things to go well, did the holiday pacing. One Christmas, amid a sea of guests, she loudly blurted out, “Who cut the cheese!” She meant the cheddar but of course it sounded like something else. Joe and I still have a good chuckle about this. All-in-all, these were good times, memorable parties. I do look back and realize the Markiewicz’s likely felt a little sorry for me and included me in

their festivities; strictly speaking, I was an orphan, Good Christians that they were, and are, they took pity on me. Heaven Bless them.

For so many years, the Christmas of the Bicycle was my most memorable Christmas. That is, until the winter I was so ill and found myself in recovery on Cape Cod, in Hyannis. Over the long weeks, it got lonely there and I was bummed that Christmas was coming and I’d be alone, without family. Diane talked Rico into making the long drive to spend Christmas with me. This brightened my spirits and on Christmas Day, I looked eagerly forward to their arrival. But, it started to snow and I worried they’d have a hard time making it from Lowell to Hyannis, or even decide not to come. I was an absolute wreck when four hours beyond their estimated time of arrival passed and they hadn’t shown up. I was so worried about their safety and was climbing the walls when Head Nurse, Jackie Fossiano, a force in and of herself to be reckoned with, worse even  than the snowstorm, lost patience with my pacing and snapped, “A watched pot never boils, Leo! Go write in your journal!” and sent me to my room.

It was six in the evening when Diane and Rico pulled up in their SUV and spirited me away from the hospital for a few hours. The snow covered the landscape, making for a white Christmas. Rico drove to a spot near the ocean and parked. They brought out of the trunk all the gifts they’d bought me. I unpacked the bag of gifts I’d brought for them. The night was so silent and still. There, as we watched the boats on the water, decorated for the holiday with strings of colorful lights (a Cape Cod Christmas tradition), we opened our presents and ooh-ed and ah-ed. It was a freezing cold night; not even Rico’s heater could warm the car up. But I was so completely thrilled to have them there, have my sister

beside me, surrounded by all the festive wrapping paper and ribbons, the boats ahead bobbing on the cold, snow-capped water, that I was seized through-and-through by a joy I’ve never felt. Truly, a Christmas to remember…

Papa & Ma at Christmas, 1955

Leo at Lowell City Hall Nativity Display

Leo & Cousin Ed, Christmas 1959

Joe’s sister Jane with Christmas gift

Joe, Sam & Me: Markiewicz Family Christmas, 1983

Glass Wax

English Racer bicycle

Bon Marche, Christmas 1938

Boat decorated for Christmas in Hyannis

Antique elevator with cage

Agnes Bogosian

1960s-era color wheel for aluminum Christmas tree

Holiday Mosaic, Downtown Lowell

This article, slightly revised, appeared first in Merrimack Valley Magazine in December 2021 when Covid had become part of daily life. Invited to write a piece about holiday time in the area, I dialed back to my childhood and later college years when downtown Lowell was a magnet for people celebrating the season. —PM (12/22)

“Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?” A Holiday Mosaic

By Paul Marion

I have a short poem, “A Hundred Nights of Winter,” describing a loaded street scene of life-sized crèche figures in front of Lowell City Hall being hauled away in an orange dump truck of the public works department. The late Lowell artist Vassilios “Bill” Giavis made a painting depicting the poem and asked me to write the lines on the right side of the sheet of paper. People still talk about the painting, which became popular in prints that he sold at the Brush Gallery downtown.

Nativity figures, Lowell, Mass. by Vassilios Giavis

That manger set removal happened in 1982, a brutal winter which prevented city workers from dismantling the manger until early March. We were all ready to get out—not as dramatic as the current extended lockdown ordered to protect our health. We’ve been in a virus crouch for about 200 days now, with winter in sight. Imagine if the virus had hit us last November and soaked in while we were freezing and really stuck indoors.

A Hundred Nights of Winter

It’s been so cold and bad
that it took until last week
to dismantle the public manger.
From my office window, through flurries,
I saw an orange dump truck
pull away in traffic
with Joseph, Mary, shepherds, and angels
standing crowded in the back
like a bunch of refugees.
After a hundred nights of winter,
I’m ready to get out.

The thing is, that tough winter is not typical of my recollections of winter holidays in the Merrimack Valley. Born in Lowell, I grew up close by in Dracut (only place in the U.S. with that name, which comes from Draycot Foliat in England, dating from 1086 or earlier). When I was a kid, Lowell was downtown Dracut, which had no shopping hub to speak of except the affordable Beaver Brook Mills department store in the Collinsville section of town. My family is a Lowell creation anyway, with roots on both sides going back to 1880, when ancestors quit Quebec. Plus, my mother, Doris, always sold fashionable women’s clothes in Cherry & Webb at the corner of Merrimack and John streets.

We had our seasonal rituals at year’s end, one of which was a visit to the manger I would write about many years later. Those figures were probably the same plaster Joseph and Mary that I took in as a youngster in the ‘50s and early ’60s. Back then, Lowell, like other old factory cities (Haverhill, Lawrence), was the commercial magnet for surrounding town residents. Poet Robert Creeley, who grew up in Acton, recalls his folks taking him to Lowell to buy new school shoes in the 1930s. Up until the early 1980s, Lowell had Cherry’s, Bon Marché and Pollard’s department stores, clothes shops like McQuade’s, Lemkins, and Martin’s, Prince’s Bookstore, Lull & Hartford sporting goods, Birke’s for basics direct from the Garment District in New York (the owners were Holocaust survivors), Record Lane and Garnick’s for music and TVs, 5 & 10-Cent stores with everything from sewing materials to green parakeets, and many restaurants.

For me, the priorities were toys and sports equipment. The top floor of Bon Marché (later Jordan’s with the prized blueberry muffin recipe) transformed into Toyland in mid-November, not as big as the whole floor-sized Enchanted Village at Jordan Marsh in Boston, but more than adequate for the needs of kids from Billerica, Chelmsford, Tewksbury, and other border towns. Santa was up there, too, taking notes. Bon Marché stocked the toys local kids learned about from TV ads, the Sears catalog, and Christmastime broadcasts of the Uncle Gus kids’ show on slightly snowy Channel 9, WMUR, out of Manchester, N.H. If I was lucky, my parents would take me through the toy display at Bon Marché a couple of times between Thanksgiving and December 25. When my mother got word of my wish list, she might put the gift on “lay-away” with a deposit and pay it off over a few weeks. I pronounced the store name “Bomma-shay,” clueless that the French term means “inexpensive” or simply, “cheap.” My mother would have said, “a good buy.”

In college in the mid-‘70s, with my mother’s help, I got a part-time job running the manual elevator in Cherry’s. (There was a Mr. Cherry, but I never met a Mr. Webb.) All the stores downtown had Monday and Thursday night hours. The action picked up big-time for the holidays. This is before the mall era, before Burlington and Methuen shopping meccas drained much of the retail life out of Lowell—a pattern that would spread to similar cities. I remember the excitement in the heart of what we’d now call a “festival marketplace,” all the shops and stores with windows decorated, lights and garland, even small Christmas trees displayed.

Nineteen-seventy-two was a blessed year if you were eighteen years old like me. Not only did the Vietnam War draft get suspended just when I had a low number in the Selective Service Lottery, but also the legal drinking age dropped to eighteen and we got the right to vote, the first eighteen-year-olds so favored. This of course pumped up downtown life as young people flooded into A.G. Pollard’s brick-and-fern saloon on Middle Street: tall beers, giant crocks of cheddar cheese plus crackers, and all the peanuts you could eat, tossing the shells on the floor, so radical. The Old Worthen a few streets away drew crowds also with small beers at 25 cents and no free nuts but a distinctive vibe propelled by the belt-run ceiling fans from the old days.

One of our family rituals when I was small involved driving around Greater Lowell to see the houses lit up like birthday cakes—bright colors, gold stars, electric candles. Not every year, but several times, my father, Marcel, drove my mother, two brothers, and me to Boston on a late, darkening Saturday afternoon so we could marvel at the Boston Common lighting display. People came from all around to walk amidst the shining trees. If there was snow on the ground, all the better. Side visits to the S.S. Pierce specialty goods store filled with wines, jams, and canned delicacies and Shreve, Crump and Low jewelers (window looking only) completed the big-city tour. We’d get ice cream at Brigham’s no matter how cold the weather. This was a large deal. I knew classmates at Dracut High who had never been to Boston.

My ten-years-older brother, Richard, made things from the time he was a kid. Growing up in St. Louis parish in Lowell before we moved to Dracut, he’d walk home from school and rescue “good” items on trash day to create installations at home. He was an art guy who took the train to Mass Art in Boston and got a teaching degree. He married around the time that Lowell was rediscovering its history, and he and Florence were fixtures at all the Victorian Christmas events that were trending in the ‘70s in the lead-up to Lowell being crowned a national park. It was the age of Dickens in the city, top hats and long dresses. When he was younger, he collected mountain laurel and sprigs of red berries in Colburn’s Woods near our Dracut home to make wreaths that he sold to family friends. He showed me how to make Mexican God’s Eye tree ornaments (Ojo de Dios) with colored yarn and crossed sticks we picked up in the yard.

People would be backed up ten deep to get into my elevator car—Going up. Going down. My freshly dry-cleaned light gold uniform suit jacket and required necktie. In my pocket an official elevator operator’s license (we got tested once a year). Coats, dresses, juniors, undergarments upstairs; bargains in the basement. The main floor featured hats, shoes, gloves, jewelry, and the magnificent cosmetics counter topped with many small mirrors and offering a plethora of powders, lipsticks, and lotions. The elevator crew from my time produced a future mayor of Lowell and a roadie for The Cars of Boston’s rock scene.

My first Christmas season in the store yielded a massive crush on a sparkling blonde Girl Officers’ colonel from Lowell High School, Leslie, who worked in cosmetics. She was clearly out of my league, but she gave me a chance. I missed the moment after a concert date to see John Sebastian without the Lovin’ Spoonful at Merrimack College in North Andover and a dazzling time at the store holiday party at the Speare House (Camelot-themed on Lowell’s riverbank) where we danced to “Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?”—a throw-back song by Hurricane Smith in the winter of 1972 sung in the style of a 1940s crooner. The DJ played it several times, excellent for a peppy slow dance, along with “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest and “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder (pick up the dance pace). Leslie wore a red-wine silk outfit with jacket and flared pants. She was gliding that night. Turns out I was not in the advanced math group for relationships. Leslie moved on to higher education in the Midwest. (I had to look up the song and was amazed to learn that Norman “Hurricane” Smith had been a jazz performer before going into record-making. He engineered 100 Beatles songs up through the Rubber Soul album. John Lennon nicknamed him “Normal” Smith. Who knew?)

Churches put on their best for the season, from Advent to the Nativity for Catholics. I was not worldly as a boy, so the Protestant church services and different holiday observances for Jewish families existed beyond my cultural horizon. Lowell had three synagogues and a related thick social tapestry. I regret what I missed, but didn’t know enough even into my late teens to appreciate the diversity of the community. When I got my driver’s license, it was great fun to stay up and go to Christmas Midnight Mass with a pile of friends. Even the few Methodists would squeeze into the back seat because we had well-dressed young women in there for the group date. We lived a parish-bound life in many respects, attending Catholic elementary school and the home church in Dracut, Ste. Thérèse, a French-Canadian spillover from St. Louis de France parish in the contiguous Centralville neighborhood of Lowell. Hundreds of returned WWII veterans used their G.I. Bill low-cost mortgage benefit to buy starter homes over the line in Dracut in the early ‘50s. I chose public high school in Dracut, but even there the group was homogeneous, the Harris family being the only African Americans in the school. Not much beyond Christian believers visible.

The Marion family realized the good fortune of having a turkey at Thanksgiving, a ham with canned pineapple for Christmas, and a roast for New Year’s. On the inside of one cabinet door above our kitchen counter my father always tacked up a calendar for the year—and behind the calendar he had scotch-taped a newspaper clipping of a ragged-looking boy about five years old looking out a tenement window. Dad said he never wanted to forget the suffering in the world, the misery that is often out of our sight. In the holiday season, he donated money to help needy families and contributed to the Jimmy Fund, the Red Sox charity for kids with cancer. He had studied to be a priest but left before the serious seminary training. The bishop should sell all the gold items in the church and use the money to help poor children, he said.

When I think about past holidays, the family gatherings, the celebrations, the comings together on sidewalks downtown, the gifts given and received, the Christmas music (no other holiday matches this song catalog), the feeling I get is one of community, being with familiar people or strangers in an open exchange. Joyeux Noel, Happy Hanukkah, Merry New Year’s, the greetings, the upbeat expressions, the sense of sharing that takes hold. We’re in a time of caution and distances and will be for a while. The cherished rituals will likely change, but not enough to be unrecognizable. It will be important to draw on our warm memories of less anxious days. No person, no power, can suppress the good will we want to express.

Paul Marion (c) 2021

Recollections of Noël

Recollections of Noël

By Louise Peloquin

When the priest at Notre Dame de Lourdes church * put on violet vestments on the first Sunday of Advent, Noël was on the horizon.

My family attended French Mass which always included traditional hymns from Québec and France. Our Advent favorite was:

“Venez Divin Messie
Nous rendre espoir et nous sauver.
Vous êtes notre vie,
Venez, venez, venez!”

(Come Divine Messiah
To give us hope and save us.
You are our life,
Come, come, come!)

The glorious sound of bellowing organ chords filled the church as we sang along with the choir. One of my altar boy cousins had the honor of lighting the first purple candle on the Advent wreath. Plumes of pungent incense tickled our noses and added to the irresistible suspense. “Noël s’en vient!” (Christmas is coming!). It was the time to prepare our hearts and homes for “le Divin Messie”. My cousins and I lived in a two-family home in the Highlands. The sixteen-year age difference between the eldest and the youngest never inhibited fun.

The family home on Harvard St in the Highlands

Our Advent occupations included getting ready for “la Messe de Minuit” (Midnight Mass). Every willing youngster could have a role in the Nativity pageant. We all wanted to be part of the show, not only to don a special costume but also to stay up way past bedtime.

The most coveted roles – Marie, Joseph and the shepherds – were reserved for the best-behaved NDDL seventh and eighth graders. None of the young’uns protested. They knew seniority would come in due time and were quite satisfied to join the heavenly host of angels wearing sky blue satin gowns and silver garland halos designed by couturier mothers and nuns. I was once among the seraphs coiffed with a shirt hanger halo precariously tilted on my small head. It systematically slipped to my eyebrows but I nevertheless maintained a pious posture with hands crossed at the waist.

The army of angels could not remain upstairs for “la Messe de Minuit” because enthusiastic parishioners crowded the nave. So our big show consisted in trooping down the aisle to the tune of “Douce Nuit, Sainte Nuit” (Silent Night, Holy Night) then proceeding to the basement where the PA system aired the upstairs ceremony. Only Jesus’s parents and the two shepherds benefitted from church seating on three-legged stools inside the wooden crêche placed to the side of the altar. The sacristan made sure the evergreen garlands, poinsettia planters and large tinfoil star were a worthy decor to welcome “l’Enfant Jésus” (the Child Jesus).

During the pre-wide-screen-video era, we little ones had to visualize the pomp a few feet above our heads. We didn’t mind. At the end of the Mass we would file back up when the pastor switched on all the lights and placed the “Petit Jésus” statue in a bed made of planks covered with yellow straw. Marie and Joseph would contemplate the divine newborn and the whole congregation would break out in song. Joy and love became palpable.

“Il est né le Divin Enfant!
Jouez hautbois, résonnez musettes.
Il est né le Divin Enfant.
Chantons tous son avènement.”

(He is born the Divine Child.
Play oboes, resound bagpipes.
He is born the Divine Child.
Let us all sing His coming.)

When Midnight Mass was over, attendees lingered to wish one another “Joyeux Noël!” with smiles, handshakes and hugs. The army of angels went back to the basement to exchange its celestial garb for winter coats, boots and colorful handknit “tuques” (woolen hats). While helping the younger cherubs bundle up, the supervising nuns would insist on maintaining angelic conduct. A heartfelt “Oui, ma Soeur” (yes Sister) was the usual response.

After Mass, mothers accompanied children to the crêche. Everyone wanted to admire “l’Enfant Jésus” surrounded by Marie, Joseph and the two shepherds. Lights flashed as snap shots were taken and the organist continued the repertoire of “cantiques” (hymns) like “Minuit chrétien” (O Holy Night), “Les anges dans nos campagnes…Gloria in excelsis Deo”, “Dans cette étable” (in this stable).

Fatigue evaporated as churchgoers headed home for “le Réveillon”, the post-Midnight Mass family celebration consisting in a French-Canadian smorgasbord and singing. For us kids, the prospect of staying up long after “la Messe de Minuit” with our favorite playmates was most appreciated. During “le Réveillon”, the doors separating the two-family residence remained open. It was a magical time. An evergreen wreath with red ribbons dancing in the biting wind hung on the door outside. Inside, an “arbre de Noël” (Christmas tree) bedecked with multicolored lights, glass balls and shiny tinsel occupied the front hall.

Happy Cousins at Christmas

On the living room wall hung an unusual wreath made of large pine cones encircling shellacked and painted paper mâché fruit. It looked real enough to make our mouths water. Had it been within my reach, I certainly would have plucked a few cherries and grapes. My physician father had received the ornament from the mother of a young patient he had saved by performing emergency surgery on a ruptured appendix. When the holidays were over, my mother would store the work of art in safekeeping. One December, when she noticed that the shellacked paint had chipped and the cherries and grapes had begun to droop, she salvaged the bananas, apples and pears to prolong its lifespan. How sad we were when the cornucopia wreath eventually disappeared from the holiday scene. The young patient had grown up and his parents had moved out of town. For years thereafter, Papa received a “carte de Noël” (Christmas card) expressing their “gratitude éternelle”.

Another patient contribution to our Noël decorations was a unique “Petit Jésus”. Papa had tackled an outbreak of pneumonia in a convent one year. The severe as well as mild cases had taken their course and every nun, old and young, recovered. They decided the care warranted a special “merci” – a baby Jesus made of beeswax. His upturned mouth was delicately painted in the palest of pinks. Blonde eyebrows over opalescent lids showed off blue glass eyes. A tuft of soft, fluffy blonde curls crowned his round head. The first time we laid eyes on this “Petit Jésus”, we were convinced he could read our thoughts so we tried to be “bons” (good) in his presence. Laying in the small wooden bed sculpted by “Pépère” (Grandpa), he became the showpiece of our crêche. Maman would always put him away in the basement along with the fruit wreath. But one dog day of summer turned our beautiful “Enfant Jésus” into an amorphous glob. Since he had been blessed by a priest, he remained very precious and we couldn’t possibly dump him into the trash. The wax figure had a proper burial in the back yard with a special rock to mark the spot. Long after, we kids said silent prayers there during our after-school games of tag and hide and seek. “Le Petit Jésus”, we thought, was still observing us with his blue glass eyes.

In most Franco-American homes “le Réveillon” was a culinary “fête” where expert cooks toiled beyond the call of duty to satisfy appetites and thrill palates. Specialties were served buffet style at our house. Crackers spread with homemade “cretons” (pork scrap pâté) were snapped up while the “tourtières” (pork pies) heated. My mother and aunt would compare their “tourtière” recipes and exchange tips on the most appropriate spicing. Cups of thick, bacon-rich “soupe aux pois” (pea soup) were passed around along with slivers of “pâté au salmon” (salmon pie). Drinks included fresh apple cider and Maman’s egg nog whipped up instinctively, never with a recipe. Since her passing in 2012, no one has managed to duplicate it. Adults spiked the concoction with a splash or two of brandy while we kids downed it like water.

“Le Réveillon” was meant to restore energy from the effort of attending Midnight Mass. It included desserts like apple and cranberry-raisin pies, as well as “tarte au sucre” (sugar pie) – a delectable maple syrup, brown sugar, heavy cream, butter, eggs and flour filling in the flakiest of crusts topped with a dollop of whipped cream.

Louise’s mother at the piano

Hot coffee, tea and cocoa helped everyone digest before the musical portion of “le Réveillon”. One of the family’s pianists would sit at the old baby grand, purchased by “Mémère” (Grandma) decades before at a flea market. Happy revellers joined in song belting out French and English yuletide carols. When my aunt and mother noticed droopy eyelids, the celebration wound up. We all complied knowing that the merriment would continue the next day. “Bonsoir, joyeux Noël tout le monde!” (Goodnight, merry Christmas everyone!). Cousins trooped up to their rooms. Parents expressed thanks and the doors closed on happy hearts and replete tummies. Once again, the two-family “Réveillon” had been “une belle fête” (a beautiful party).

Morning comes quickly when one retires in the wee hours. After “le Réveillon”, we were eager to discover what “le Père Noël” (Father Christmas) had brought. Yes indeed, we had often been naughty but we had become nicer and nicer as December 25th approached. There had to be something for us under the tree. Sure enough, colorfully wrapped boxes and bags were awaiting. My parents didn’t raid the toy store to cater to our every wish. Each of us received one. This was completed with a gift for the whole family.

Louise and her brother

One year, my brother and I received a “doctor set” – a bright red plastic satchel filled with medical instruments like a stethoscope, a thermometer, bottles of jelly-bean pills, cotton balls, a little scalpel. A family gift was a board game, an illustrated book or a badminton set to share with our cousins. Maman and Papa received artwork created under the supervision of the very patient Grey Nuns of the Cross at NDDL school.

After exchanging gifts and reluctantly getting out of our PJ’s, we helped Maman prepare the table. “Le jour de Noël” (Christmas Day) was a day for more family members to gather for an afternoon meal. My paternal “Mémère” and “Pépère”, along with several aunts, arrived with offerings. I remember Pépère’s box of individually-wrapped, cantaloupe-sized, pink Florida grapefruit and the aunts’ homemade fruitcake, fudge and snowman-shaped gingerbread cookies. The culinary creations had to look as good as possible before disappearing into hungry bellies. We sat down for the “repas de Noël” (Christmas meal) after saying the “bénédicité” (grace) with a special “merci” for the most precious gift of all, “être ensemble” (being together).

The menu included “tourtière” for those who couldn’t get enough of it. The “plat de résistance” (main dish) was either a repeat of Thanksgiving or a glazed ham decorated with cloves and pineapple slices. Papa would take out his sharpest knife and carve out paper thin slices of meat while explaining – “Les tranches minces sont plus digestes, plus faciles à mastiquer et vous en aurez plus!” (Thin slices are easier to digest, easier to chew and you’ll have more!) He was undoubtedly thinking of the guests with missing molars.

The spirited exchanges were always in French. “Parler français” was natural, especially since we had never heard our Québec-born grandparents speak English. After a lifetime working in New England mill towns, they certainly could “Parler américain”.  But their thoughts were best fashioned in that wonderful French-Canadian vernacular which mirrored the language of Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain. We kids grew up with its special music and vocabulary. Still today, it rings in our heads like a familiar tune.

At the end of the day, Mémère, Pépère and “les Ma Tantes” (the aunts), bid us “Bonsoir et à bientôt” (goodnight and see you soon). We would reunite on January 1st to receive Pépère’s “bénédiction familiale de la nouvelle année” (the new year’s family blessing), a French-Canadian custom – the head of the family ushers in the new year with prayers and good wishes for relatives, friends, the local community and the whole world. We would reverently bow our heads beneath our grandfather’s raised arms, convinced that the blessing would put the year on the right track. Ever since, we have felt Pépère’s presence during the “bénédiction”.

Many Noël traditions remain as we meet to exchange greetings, gifts and lots of food. Some Franco families still organize a “Réveillon”. But the pageantry and magnificence of “la Messe de Minuit” belong to the era when many Franco-American parishes served the city of Lowell.

* NDDL Parish was founded in 1908 to cater to Lowell’s South Common district Franco-Americans. The house of worship on Church Street opened in 1962 and was closed in 2004.

The Author

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This post originally appeared here on December 21, 2021.