December 25, 2014. Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. Christmas Past.

Today I have enjoyed myself enormously thinking over Christmas Past. Many times, the small insignificant things are what are recalled. But they were all good and gave me much pleasure. Christmas dinner in 1963 was held in our flat in North Toronto. Ken was an Intern and on call so we could not journey to Dave and Irene in Ancaster so everyone came to our house. Two facts from that dinner stand out. Wendy my niece was a baby. She was beautifully dress in a white outfit. And she crawled over the floors. Now the apartment was lovely and appeared clean. The hard wood floors were shining bright. But when Wendy was ready to go home her outfit was no longer white. It was dark gray. I was mortified. Interestingly, Irene does not recall the dirt on Wendy's clothes. But I do. The second fact I recalled were the surgical knots Ken tied on the turkey and the roast beef. Many Canadians prefer turkey for Christmas but we decided to serve both beef and turkey. And Ken used red string for the knots. These fancy knots looked splendid. And that is all I can remember of Christmas 1963.