One Hundred Christmases

As the year dies, and the darkest nights descend, I sit by the light of the Christmas tree and reminisce. Each year we unpack the artificial tree, adorn it with bells and baubles, and share the memories that each ornament evokes. It’s a time for settling down and snuggling in, cloaking ourselves in light and dark. The Christmas tree can be a capsule of family traditions and people past, a time for stories and remembering.

I was reminded of this on Christmas Eve last year. We were in Victoria visiting my Dad’s cousin Jackie, an aunt-like figure with whom I’ve grown very close to over the years. Her presence is a link to my dad’s maternal family, and at 90 years old, her memories bridge several generations.

Like previous years, she had put up their familiar Christmas decorations. Along the buffet, the felt choir mice she had stitched in the 1980s “sang” Silent Night. On the coffee table, a quilted red-and-green table runner edged in rickrack held a crystal bowl of nuts. On the black slate hearth, a red poinsettia fanned itself in front of the fireplace.

In front of the sliding glass doors stood the simple artificial pine Christmas tree, dressed with strings of lights and ornaments. Natural light poured through the windows, highlighting the bare spots and sparse branches on the tree. What struck me last year, for the first time, was how the decorations never changed, year after year. I had never noticed before—never stopped to ask Jackie about them.

I stepped closer to look. Mushrooms. White mushrooms hung from the tree, along with long white icicles, a bell, and a tree, all dipped in sparkles. They were still in good shape, yet something about them felt old – maybe their simplicity, maybe the tiny places where the glitter had worn thin.

This year, as I thought about Christmas, I remembered those old decorations. I had taken some photos, so pulled them up and did a Google image search to see what I could learn. Spun cotton dipped in mica, it said. Made in Germany. 1900–1930s.

Immediately I thought of the century of family Christmases these ornaments had witnessed, that I knew little about. I should call Jackie, I thought, and ask her about them.

“What can you tell me about the spun cotton Christmas ornaments?” I asked. And a treasure trove of Christmases past tumbled out.

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Jackie was born in 1935, the oldest grandchild to Daniel and Minnie Hattie. She grew up in a small home next to her grandparents (my great-grandparents) on First Street in Duncan, BC. Daniel and Minnie Hattie had married in 1903 and raised a family of four: a son and three daughters. Jackie’s mother, Grace, was the eldest, and my grandmother, Kathleen, was the youngest. Their Edwardian home expanded over the years as the family and Daniel’s fortunes grew.

Shortly after Jackie was born, her mom, Grace took on much of the responsibility of caring for her elderly parents next door. She nursed her mother, Minnie, through her lingering cancer illness, and then kept an eye on her stubborn father, who Jackie called Gubby (she couldn’t pronounce grandpa, and the nickname stuck).

The larger home with its paneled dining room became a Christmas gathering place for all the family. To the right of the front entrance was the sitting room, a small room with a crackling fireplace and formal seating to entertain guests. The Christmas tree was always placed in a windowed alcove and were always live, mostly Douglas Fir cut from the nearby forests. They had light, feathery branches, and scented the home with needles and sap.

“From the time I can remember, we had a tree,” Jackie told me, and these white ornaments were part of them.[1] The long, white icicles hung from her own parents’ tree, and the mushrooms and bell adorned the tree in the large family home next door.

Gubby owned a successful hardware store, and Jackie is sure that he ordered the ornaments to the store through catalogues or salespeople who came around, selling “something special.”

Indeed, these ornaments are something special. Spun cotton ornaments were handcrafted in Germany, where the Christmas tree itself first became a tradition and many of the earliest decorations were born. Families or small groups of artisans worked in their own homes, often in spare rooms or attics as a way to earn extra money, especially in rural areas where industrial jobs were scarce. Cotton batting was wound around wire frames, dipped in glue, and dusted with mica so the pieces would sparkle in candlelight. Each piece was slightly unique because it was hand-crafted. Mushrooms were a common motif, drawn from European folklore as symbols of good luck and quiet abundance—small, hopeful things hanging among the branches.[2]

Talking about the ornaments prompted Jackie to remember her own Christmases. On Christmas Eve their stockings were placed at the end of their beds and by morning were filled with nuts and a few other little things. “Japanese oranges were a real treat. By the time the war started, I would have been five or six, and we certainly couldn’t have had any in the war. But after the war, that was what was always in our stocking. It was very, very special to get a Japanese orange, they only came at Christmas time.”

Gifts were simple back then. “The presents weren’t huge, expensive things like now, coming out of the Depression, the war, you just couldn’t.” One year, when she was seven or eight years old, Jackie got a bike: “I don’t think it was a new bike, but it was special to me. It was normal to have second-hand things. We always got presents. Sometimes a book, a piece of clothing, a sweater, a tuque or mitts. We loved to get books for Christmas. Everyone in the family liked to read.”

Though there weren’t many gifts, there was plenty of food. Christmas baking started in November when Jackie’s mother made the light Christmas cake, then in the weeks leading to Christmas she baked shortbread and mince tarts.

Christmas dinner was served at Gubby’s house in the formal paneled dining room next to the sitting room. Jackie always remembered a turkey at Christmas and quite often a ham at New Year’s, though she admits that it’s possible the family might have had goose or even chicken prior to her memories. “I don’t think we ever lacked for food,” Jackie recalled. Their plates were filled with the labours of their summer vegetable garden: Brussels sprouts, carrots, and turnip —“always turnip.” Homemade cranberry sauce and pickled beets were served, along with a bread stuffing – no meat – with bread, onion and seasonings that they cooked inside the turkey.

Though Gubby’s house had the larger gathering space for extended family, the stove was fuelled by wood and was used mainly for the side dishes. Jackie thinks her mom cooked the twenty-pound turkey at her house next door and had it brought over. Its large size made it “hard to handle.” The table was decorated with Minnie’s china and one of Jackie’s highlights before eating was pulling on the Christmas crackers. They’d explode with a bang and reveal toys, jokes, and colourful paper crowns that they’d wear throughout dinner.

She also loved the dessert: “I always can remember the trifle and the Christmas pudding” with a warm, brown sauce spooned over it. Auntie Mar usually made the Christmas pudding with an extra special hard sauce that her daughter, Sonya, now contributes to family gatherings. Afterwards, they’d often sing – Uncle Tom had a lovely singing voice, and my grannie Kathleen would have played the piano. Jackie reflected: “I just have good memories. You know as a kid, you didn’t think of all the work that went into it all. We were certainly blessed to have the family we had.”

My great-grandmother, Minnie, died of cancer in 1950 and Gubby followed in 1958. After his death, Jackie’s mom kept the white cotton ornaments and each year would hang them from her tree. And later, Jackie brought them home to carry on the tradition.

Jackie’s husband passed away earlier this year, and, she confided, she didn’t feel much like putting up the Christmas tree. But then she thought “Well, you never know if it’s the last year I’m going to be in the house. So, I have the tree up, and I love to take out the decorations.”

These white, spun cotton ornaments have seen one hundred Christmases, maybe more. They have hung quietly as generations came and went. I think of the laughter these ornaments have witnessed over the past century, with even a few tears. This year they hang again as Jackie turns on the fireplace, sits beside the tree, and reads while her supper cooks. The wreath is on the door. The lights are on. The tradition continues. “I just feel so thankful that I am able to be here, for every moment.”

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Sources:

1. Jackie S., phone interview with author, December 7, 2025. Quotes throughout were from the same interview.

2. Bygone Theatre, “A Very Vintage Christmas: Sourcing True Vintage Holiday Decor,” Bygone Theatre, November 21, 2021, https://bygonetheatre.wordpress.com/2021/11/21/a-very-vintage-christmas-sourcing-true-vintage-holiday-decor/.