Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Hanukkah - Dave’s Christmas Tree

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

“Light, said Dave, amidst the darkness.”An extra episode for the holidays with a special story about Dave and Sam out and about on a perfect winter’s night. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. As you know, Christmas is a bit of a deal here at the Vinyl Cafe, and it's a bit of a deal in my home too. I love traditions and I love rituals. They give me comfort. They give me something to look forward to. They help me feel grounded. They remind me where I came from, which is another way of saying they remind me who I am. They remind me of my favorite memories, but they also get me excited for my future. And as much as I love tradition, I'm not rigid about traditions.

The spirit of the tradition needs to be constant for me, but the details don't. As far as traditions go, Christmas is sort of the Super Bowl. Most of us who celebrate Christmas share at least a few rituals around the season. Santa, stockings, Christmas cookies, presents, Christmas lights. It's that last one, the lights, that I love the most about the season. I love how the warm lights brighten up the darkest time of the year. And I love the symbolism of finding light in the darkness. So, yeah, I love Christmas. But it's not the only holiday we celebrate in our household. We also celebrate Hanukkah.

We're basically lighting candles, hanging lights, and opening presents for like three weeks straight at our place. It's pretty great. Last year, my daughter Eloise's teacher told me this story. On the first day back to school after the break, the teacher asked everyone about their holidays. They did an activity where they painted a picture of their holiday, and at the bottom there was a prompt.

The prompt said, my favorite part of Christmas was dot dot dot. Eloise's painting said, my favorite part of Christmas was Hanukkah. That made me so happy. Eloise is only seven, so she was not trying to prove a point, although point made. We celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah in our house, so Eloise didn't feel left out. But I know there are some friends in her class that don't celebrate Christmas at all. But that's not what Eloise was doing.

She wasn't being facetious. She was being earnest. Hanukkah is her favorite part of Christmas, and it's easy to see why. First of all, it's eight nights long. Every night, for eight nights, we gather together as a family, we open gifts, we eat food fried in oil, and we light the menorah. Despite the fact that she's seven and she gets to open a gift every single day for eight days, it's actually the last part, the menorah, that makes it Eloise's favorite.

Mine too. We light the menorah every night at sundown, which means my husband has to rush home from work so we can all be together. And for eight nights, that's what we do. We gather together around the dining room table, and each night of Hanukkah begins by lighting the menorah. We turn off all of the lights so the entire house is dark, and the only light is the shamash. Let me back up for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about.

Can you picture a menorah? Do you know what I'm talking about? It's a candelabra. It holds multiple candles. Do you know the one? There's one candle that stands a little taller than the rest. That's called the shamash. He's the candle that lights all the other candles. There are eight nights of Hanukkah. On night one, you light the shamash and then you use that candle to light one candle. On night two, you light the shamash and you use that candle to light two candles. On night three, you use that candle to light three candles. Get the picture? So every night of Hanukkah, our little family of four comes together. We're all in separate places in the day. little family of four comes together. We're all in separate places in the day. Josh is at work,

Annabelle is at daycare, Eloise is at school, and I'm at home. You want to light the candles at sundown if you can. So it feels like a bit of a race towards the end of the day. We're all rushing, rushing, rushing, all of us in our separate worlds. Josh at work, rushing home through traffic, me at home, rushing to pick up the kids at school and daycare. We're all rushing around in our little separate worlds. And then the sun sets and the lights go dim. And there's no more rushing. There's just us, the four of us, together, in the dark. We light the shamash. And then, before we use the shamash to light the other candles, we say a blessing. Baruch atah adusham, eluhenu melech haolam, asher kidishanu, b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu, l'chadlek ner shal hanukkah. We say this together, in the dark, with only one candle lit.

And then we use that candle to light the others. And then we eat fried foods, lakka, donuts, fish and chips, under the glow of the menorah. It's a lovely moment, and we get to do it every day for eight days. A pause, a slowdown, a time to reflect, and a reminder that there's light in the darkness. the literal translation of shamash is helper i didn't grow up jewish so i don't know if this is the way you're supposed to do it but this is what i do before i use the shamash to light the other candles i like to give that little helper a moment of his own i like to be reminded that those of us who have light those of us who are lucky enough to have a light that shines bright, we have the ability, maybe more than that, we have the responsibility to be little helpers too. We can be a guiding light.

We can cast a warm glow. Or we can use our flame to ignite others. But we have to use it. We have to share it before it burns out. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with a Dave and Morley story, So stick around. Welcome back. I've been talking about Hanukkah this week, talking about the celebration of light. This is Stuart McLean with a story about bringing light into the darkness. Is there a better place in the country to spend Christmas than in Dave's hometown of Big Narrows?

There is, I don't know. There's just something about the place. It's the hills, maybe. It is hill country. The way the snow squeaks under your feet when you go walking at night. What could be better on a night in December than to have hills around you and squeaking snow underfoot. Snow as hard and white and as close as the stars overhead. It's weird, said Sam. It's like he could touch them. Not like the city, said Dave. Well, not like the city at all. Christmas in big narrows comes with the country things that can make a winter night perfect. Singing snow, wondrous stars, dark trees, deep mountains. And it was smack in the middle of the week before Christmas, right in the middle of all this cheeriness, that we find Dave and his son Sam smacked in the middle of Big Narrows,

walking along the old railway tracks, heading toward town. Another Cape Breton Christmas, not their first, nor by any means their last. It's nighttime when we see them, and it's late. The sky, pure black. The stars, bone white. And the air, chilly. So crisp it feels like ice on their lungs. Their breath is puffing out of them like little wispy clouds. They're both wearing backpacks. Dave is carrying a stepladder.

Why are we doing this anyway, says Sam. Well, we do it every year, said Dave. We didn't do it last year, said Sam. Well, we weren't here last year, said Dave. We do it every year we're here. Well, shouldn't they put up their own lights, said Sam? Well, it's a long story, said Dave. We do it every year we're here. Well, shouldn't they put up their own lights, said Sam? No, it's a long story, said Dave. Tell me, said Sam. Oh, I don't know, said Dave. It's not a story I'm particularly proud of. I don't look so good in this story. Well, you have to tell me now, said Sam.

Let me think about that, said Dave. Happened a long time ago. I was just a kid, maybe like 13. And with that, Dave stepped off the main track and onto a smaller path, a shortcut that headed into the woods. The path followed a shortcut that headed into the woods. The path followed a little creek, the black water carving lovely mushroom-shaped caps out of the snow.

Truth be told, he wasn't 13 when this story began. He was 15. 15 and besotted with the infamous Megan Lorius. Head over heels. Crazy about him, said Dave. Would have done anything. And as it turns out, he just about did, didn't he? Well, I don't know, said Sam. You haven't told me anything yet. With that, Dave stopped and spun around. He was holding on to a spruce branch that was stretched across the path, holding it so it wouldn't spring back and hit his son.

Have you ever felt that way about a girl, he said. Sam frowned and said, don't change the subject. Don't change the subject. Dave laughed out loud. Then he let the branch go. It smacked Sam in the face. Hey, said Sam. But Dave was already heading down the trail again. Sam brushed himself off and hurried to catch up.

It was coming on Christmas, and Dave was 50. And one day at lunch, this elusive object of his desire, this Megan Laureus, was sitting at one of the six picnic tables in the school basement, and she was doing something that she did well. She was complaining this lunchtime about the pathetic Christmas tree her father had brought home from Sydney. And as he listened to Megan go on and on, Dave recognized an opportunity. The way to Megan's elusive heart, which had seemed so foggy and fraught, was suddenly clear to him. He would take her up on Macaulay's Mountain, and he'd get her the tree of her dreams. It'd be great. And what would make it even greater was they would spend the day tramping around on the mountains with no one else around them, least of all his rival for her heart, that good-for-nothing Stephen

Kerrigan. That afternoon, Dave screwed up his courage and insinuated himself beside Megan as she walked home. He said, I could come over on Saturday. We could go up behind Macaulay's and get a better tree, you and me. She seemed to like the idea. She said, that's so cute. Well, no week in the history of time took longer. That week plodded by like Gillespie's horse. When Saturday finally came, Dave showed up after lunch at Megan's one o'clock on the button, just like he said. and Dave showed up after lunch at Megan's, one o'clock on the button, just like he said. Megan answered the door.

Her hair was messed up, and she looked surprised to see him. She said, I didn't think you were serious. That is so cute. I can't wait to see what you get, Davey. And that's when Dave spotted Stephen Kerrigan sitting on the couch, smirking at me, said Dave. Stephen and I are studying.

And then she more or less shut the door in my face, said Dave. And I'm standing there feeling like a loser. That's because you were a loser, said Sam. Then he said, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is before you knew Mom, right? Oh, way before, said Dave. I was only like 12. It was a bit of a hike from Megan's place to the top of Macaulay's Mountain.

And halfway there, it started to snow. By the time Dave got to the top of the mountain, it was blowing pretty hard. Before long, Dave was freezing and discouraged. But he'd made such a big deal of getting a tree that he couldn't show up empty-handed. The problem was all the good trees had already been taken. As he shook the snow off one tree and then another, he began to wish that he had stayed home. His mom would be making cookies.

His dad would be chopping wood. His friends would be playing shinny in the quarry. Finally, he gave up and trudged back down the mountain feeling so sorry for himself that he hid in the bush when he heard a family walking up the mountain towards him. He didn't want to see anyone. He didn't want to be seen either. When he got back to town, he slunk along Muskrat Street instead of Railway. Now back in those days, there was only one house on Muskrat Street, down by the river all by itself. It was an old summer place that belonged to a family called the Slingsbys, Halifax family who hadn't used the house for years.

The house was empty. David heard about older kids who had broken in there and had parties. Sam had fallen a couple of paces behind his father. Dave stopped and waited for him to catch up. Took a deep breath when he did and he looked at his son and he said, this is where it gets bad. Sure you want me to keep going? Sam nodded. Dave said, okay. There were two perfect little Christmas trees on the front lawn of this place. One on either side of the walk.

Sam said, oh, no. Dave said, I warned you. Sam said, you chopped one down? Dave said, right at the stump. It was a beautiful little tree, and I thought I could take it to Megan and tell her I got it on the mountain. I chopped it down, and I was dragging it off the property when a light switched on in the house. There was someone there, said Sam. I just about died, said Dave. I don't think I've ever been

that scared in my life, ever. There he stood, frozen on the lawn, clutching the tree and staring up at the light in horror. It was an upstairs light. And then, and then he ran. As fast as I could, said Dave. Well, as fast as he could with eight feet of bouncing balsam behind him. You took the tree? I told you, said Dave, this story does not reflect well upon me. He ran all the way to Megan's house. When he got there, he handed her the tree and more or less ran away. There was a lot of running, said Dave. Actually, while I was running home, I was thinking maybe I should run away. I was thinking I could enlist. Enlist, said Sam? You were 13. More like 11, said Dave. And completely out of my mind. They'd come to a fork in the path. The stream they were following went left.

laughed. Dave pointed right. That way, he said. Five more minutes. You okay? Yes, said Sam. What happened next? Nothing, said Dave. Nothing happened. I felt awful. I thought I should be punished. No one was there to punish me, so I punished myself. I grounded myself for a week. There were no excuses. You were cold, said Sam, and tired and hungry. You weren't thinking straight. I was thoughtless, said Dave. Sad, said Sam. You were sad because the girl was mean to you. Well, you can't do whatever you want just because someone was mean to you, said Dave. Neither of them said anything for a while after that,

till Dave said, I met him eventually. One summer I worked at Arnie Gallagher's hardware store and I met him. He meant Mr. Slingsby, of course. Turned out he was a nice old guy. His wife had died. He was a widower. He'd moved back to the house to live there alone. That's when I started feeling really bad about it. And every time Dave walked by the house, there was that one remaining tree

reminding him what he'd done to the other. They had come to the end of the path, to the place where the path joined the road. There was a bank of snow in front of them. They clambered over the bank and slid down onto the road. Dave pointed down the road into the darkness. Just around the bend, he said. Sam was so lost in the story, he'd forgotten they had a destination,

that they were going somewhere. Anyway, said Dave, it was like that for years, even after I'd moved away. Finally, one Christmas, I couldn't stand it anymore. He came home determined to face the music. He was road managing a girl band from Austin, Texas at the time. On the drive home, he stopped and bought one of those Christmas trees that come in a pot, the ones that you use on Christmas and then plant in the spring. His plan was to visit Mr. Slingsby on the way home,

tell him what he had done all those years ago, and give him the tree. His plan was to repent and then make restitution. It had been years since I'd been there, said Dave. I used to make a point of not driving by. This time I went right there. The tree was in the trunk. My heart was in my throat.

And then when I got there, the house was completely different. The sign on the driveway didn't say the Slingsby's anymore. It said the Wallace's. And the house had new siding and a new garage and Christmas lights strung up around the eaves and the windows and there was light glowing through the living room curtains and a new garage and Christmas lights strung up around the eaves and the windows and there was light glowing through the living room curtains and a fire. The spicy scent of wood smoke hung in the air.

And the front yard? Well, the front yard was no longer home to one lonely tree. The Wallaces, or maybe Mr. Slingsby before them. I don't know, someone had let the woods spill over the property line. The front yard was full of trees. The white and black bark of silver birch twinkling in the moonlight. The silhouette of spruce and balsam against the sky. the silhouette of spruce and balsam against the sky.

There was, Dave realized, nothing missing there. Nothing at all. The earth had made up for his transgression. The forest had forgiven his flaws. In his not doing, things were done. It's the way of all things. We stand on the banks of the river fretting about water. And while we fret, the water flows by.

Dave stood there taking in the scene for longer than he should have. Then he got back in the car and drove away. I tried to turn myself in, he said to Sam, and there was no one left to let me off the hook. He left the tree with his mother. That spring when he came back to visit, it was still there by the shed. Couldn't let it die.

So one afternoon he put it in the trunk again and he went looking for somewhere to plant it. Thought of taking it up the mountain, said Dave, but that just seemed silly. He also thought of waiting until night and planting it on Megan Lorius Kerrigan's front lawn, but that seemed perverse and hardly redemptive. So he drove around town with it aimlessly. And while he was driving around wondering what he could possibly do, he passed a vacant lot by the bridge and he pulled over. And I just planted him, he said, in the vacant lot.

Took less than five minutes. And this is it, said Sam? Yup, said Dave. This is it. They were standing on the empty road in the quiet night, staring over a bank of snow at a solitary pine. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't small either, about 15 feet and bushy with a distinct lean to the left. It was beside a driveway.

I thought it was a vacant lot, said Sam. Well, it was when I planted it, said Dave. I think when they built the driveway, they curved it so they wouldn't have to cut it down. That's what I like to think anyway. I can't believe you did that, said Sam. Dave shrugged. He put his hand on his son's shoulder. I told you I didn't look great in this story. I like this part, though. this story. I like this part though. David leaned his ladder against the tree and he turned and said that there's no one around, right? He wasn't really asking. It was way too late for anyone to be around. He had his backpack off and he'd already dug out a string of lights. Let's go fast, he said.

There's an extension in there somewhere. There's a plug under the corner window. It had been a lot of Christmases since he had planted the tree. They built the lodge about a decade ago. Twelve rooms for Big Narrows' senior citizens. It took Dave and Sam about 20 minutes to put the lights on the tree. When they were done, Dave said, You run up and plug it in. When the lights twinkled on, Dave gave Sam the thumbs up. As he watched him run down towards him, he looked at the dark lodge and he smiled.

They must wonder about it, said Sam. Who does it? Yes, said Dave, it must be a bit of a mystery. Then he said, a little act of hope. What do you mean? Light, said Dave, amidst the darkness. I like this, said Sam. What, said Dave, learning that your father's an idiot? Oh, I knew that already, said Sam. I mean this. He's waved his arms around. I like all of this. Maybe when I have a kid, I'll bring him here one Christmas in the middle of the night, and we'll decorate it, and I'll tell him the story. Maybe I'll bring him, said Dave. Sam shook his head. No, he pointed at the old people's home. You'll be watching from there, he said.

Dave shrugged his backpack on and picked up the ladder. He said, if you do tell your kid kid remind him that I was only 10 don't worry said Sam he'll understand they were halfway down the road now almost back to the trailhead the two of them walking along the snow-covered road, bumping into each other. And Sam turned to his father and said, Merry Christmas, Dad. Dave smiled at Sam. Merry Christmas, son.

And their voices floated into the night. The dark trees, the bright stars, and the hills all around them. That was Dave's Christmas tree. We recorded that story back in 2010. All right, that's it for today. And that's it for this season of Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Season four is done. We're going to take a couple weeks off over the holidays, and I hope you do too. But we'll be back in early January with a whole new season of the podcast. I hope you'll be back too. Until then, I want to thank all of the people who make this show possible,

including the entire team at the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Terry and Debbie and Callie and Sydney O'Reilly, Allison Pinches and Jeff Devine. We feel so honored to work with such a talented bunch. And as always, I want to thank my good friend Danny Michelle for all of the wonderful music he's created especially for this podcast. And I want to thank my two bright shining lights, Greg Duclute and Louise Curtis. They are more than little helpers. They make my light shine brighter. Their friendship flickers and casts a warm amber glow.

And I am so, so, so lucky to work with them. And thanks to you, too, all of you listening. I hope you can gather with people you love and find light at this dark time of year. We'll catch up with you in the new year. Until then, happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, happy new year, and so long for now.