Tenth to the Fraser

Shiloh Sixth Avenue church offered a special "Blue Christmas" service yesterday for people coping with loss and grief. Aside from a minor flood in our basement this season due to a burst pipe (eek!) and the occasional family tiff we have not yet been faced with adversity at Christmastime. We have been lucky. I imagine for those who do experience tragedy at this time of year, it must be especially hard because everyone around you seems so happy. Songs of joy and peace, and all that.

Writes the Burnaby Now :

For those struck by tragedy, the most wonderful time of the year can be a season of pain.

"Everything tells you that you're supposed to be happy and excited and getting ready for Christmas, and there's just this place inside of you that says, 'I'm not there,'" says Shannon Tennant, minister at Shiloh-Sixth Avenue United Church in New Westminster.

Last Sunday, Tennant led the church's annual Blue Christmas service, a time of peaceful reflection - and a refuge from the bright lights and shopping mall Santas.

The Blue Christmas service at Shiloh-Sixth Avenue has much in common with ancient Winter Solstice celebrations, held on the shortest day of the year, Tennant says.

"In ancient times, people would actually gather in the morning to invoke the sun, because they weren't absolutely sure it would come up without them."

The service is also a reminder that the first Christmas came at a time of hardship and uncertainty for the Jews.

"At that time, the Jewish people were heavily taxed. They had Roman soldiers stomping around being annoying," Tennant says.

"So (Jesus) was born partly to give people hope, to so show them that God is with them."

Labels: Christmas, church, NW in the news

Here's a lovely hint of a story to think about as we approach Christmas: when soldiers were posted to B.C. in 1943 to guard against a feared attack by the Japanese, New Westminster opened its doors and made sure every last one had a home to go to for Christmas:

Despite omnipresent danger, tasteless bully beef and hardtack rations in the field, and nearly dying of pneumonia one year, Christmas in the army was the only place Charles Goodman wanted to be in his youth.

Having left home in Saint John any lying about his age so he could enlist in 1943, the 15-year-old found joy and escape from unhappy family life in military camaraderie.

Sent to B.C. to defend against a feared Japanese attack during his first military Christmas, Goodman recalls the town of New Westminster opening its doors to feed and fete every soldier on the festive day.

Labels: Christmas, history, military, NW in the news

This is a guest post by Brad Howard of Clever Mink's, a great little gift shop at 711 Carnarvon St. If you've got an idea for a guest post, go ahead and drop us a line. 

Having never blogged before I found the idea daunting so I sought out some friends' opinions. Some said you've got to open big to grab the reader. You've only got 4.3 seconds of their attention (that might be last year's figure, this year's is doubtlessly shorter) or they'll move on to something splashier. Make 'em laugh or make 'em cry. Talk about how to get crazy good sex or how to lose weight in an hour or about how to find inner peace but in a really fun and exciting way.

Others suggested it would be better for me to start small but be authoritative by sticking to a narrow topic that I know extremely well. Cleaning out a cat box comes to mind as does muttering to myself when stuck in traffic. Hard to imagine though, how either of those will stoke the fires of passion and controversy that fuel this strange critter known as the blogosphere. Even the word "blogosphere" seems a bit foreign to me, rolling awkwardly off my tongue like when I try to work rechereche into a conversation.

I am non-digerati, growing up in a time when computers were only seen on TV shows where they always occupied an entire room, were covered in rapidly spinning spools for some reason, and were often at work in some nefarious world-threatening plot. Or sometimes they were saving the world from said plot but suffice to say there was generally a plot involved. Cut to the present and the whole computer thing turned out to be more about letting a bunch of regular people express their thoughts and try to be interesting doing it. I'm not sure I'm up to that.

Clever Mink's is a gift shop with a funny name and, like as not, you've never heard of us. The fault for that is on us, of course, with our marketing plan that relied perhaps too heavily on mental telepathy and optimism. Nevertheless, we do exist and we do most of our existing right here in New West. Proudly so, not only as new business owners and residents in town but as new immigrants to this country.

We left the States, Bush refugees we have been called and worse, a tad over a year ago to venture into this lush green (sometimes white) land of yours with a plan firmly in mind to try to do something fun. And fun it has been, as only the commitment of a good chunk of one's savings into a strange new business during the most perilous of economic times can be fun. Other words leap to mind as well but fun is really the pick of that litter.

We decided to open our humble establishment during the dead of summer and on a street, we only subsequently learned, that had a city-wide reputation as being a great place to avoid ever going. Luckily for us our new neighbors at The Hideout Cafe, Shamryn's Hobby Shop, Queen's Park Florist, and the many others hereabout have welcomed us warmly and made us feel at home in this spot. Best of all have been our great customers, those stalwart few who've bucked the area's bad rep and actually managed to find us and have begun to spread the word about us far better than we ever could do ourselves. A big shout-out and thanks to you all.

Now I can't say as it'll improve your sex life or help you lose weight or give you that exciting version of inner peace you've been looking for, but shopping local stores is good for the soul, no doubt about it. And good for the town.

It may be an old idea but a town needs to be more than a mere collection of homes where working people rest their heads. Any town worthy of its name, especially one that possesses the rich history and character that ours does, needs its shops and markets, pubs, eateries, theatres and galleries in order to remain vibrant and liveable.

We like to think that someday soon all of us will look back at 2008 as the beginning of a renaissance in the downtown core, the time when New West decided to reclaim its place as the jewel on the banks of the Fraser river. But then we have to be optimists- we're business owners. Happy Holidays to all.

Come visit us at 711 Carnarvon St. or online at www.cleverminks.com.

Ask for Nancy or her sidekick Brad.

Labels: Christmas, Clever Mink's, downtown, holiday, shopping

Those seeking ideas for sustainable decorations this Christmas, should cast their eye to the keepers of the past. New Westminster's Irving House museum is profiled on Gardenwise for their unusual twist on a traditional garland that uses real apples for a beautiful and memorable look.

At Irving House in New Westminster the halls really are decked with boughs of holly — and lots of other traditional accents that transform the home into a celebration of a Victorian Christmas.

There are probably not many better places to evoke the spirit of the season than at this heritage home, where visitors are transported back to the 1860s and the ambiance of Victorian times.

Labels: Christmas, decorating, heritage homes, history, Irving House

Followup on our favourite Arbologger's post about the Coca-Cola Santa, here's another 'Beta' Santa, perhaps soooo proto that it's 'Alpha!'

Prepare for a New Westminster Holiday Tradition, the arrival of Sinter Klaas to open the holiday season. Children will wait in anticipation on the Quay boardwalk for Sinterklaas and the Black Peters to arrive - you can help your 2 year old to chant like the Dutch kids do, 'Zie ginds komt de stoomboot uit Spanje weer aan...' (See there the steamship from Spain is coming again...) to welcome Sinterklaas on his traditional mode of transportation - the steamboat (in New West, our Paddlewheeler.) Apparently, our local celebration is the last one in North America in which Sinterklaas still has a traditional arrival by boat. Check out the tradition of SinterKlaas and I think you'll see that he is the real Santa 1.0.

The big day is this Saturday, December 6th, the actual feast day of St. Nicholas (though the traditional Netherlands Sinterklaas day is celebrated on the eve of his Feast Day). Sinteklaas will arrive at New Westminster's boardwalk as he has for will greet the children gathered there - and if my childhood is any indication, he will give out small, hard bits of gingerbread and salty licorice and will cuddle you silently in the midst of a December downpour.

Among the Sinterklaas Welkom onlookers now are parents who in 1985 as children were present for the first arrival. The event remains a top attraction for the public market on the Fraser River bank.
Right from the start 19 years ago, local officials, MPs, MLAs, the Mayor and sometimes all councilors [sic] (and even a Premier), have been on hand to welcome the Spanish bishop. In particular councillor Casey Cook, who fondly remembers Sinterklaas calling on his hometown The Hague when he was a boy, has been there as a dignitary for years. One year he remarked that none in the crowd of onlookers seemed more excited than the grandparents.

Labels: Arbolog, Christmas, events, holiday, Santa

I did some research and found Father Christmas at the Burnaby Village Museum, who is willing to listen to children’s wishes and you can take your own photos. Huzzah.

Father Christmas is the pre-Santa, the Beta-Santa, if you will. He’s a kindly old thin dude, with a long beard and robe - sort of Gandalf type of dude - and was around way before Toys R Us and the Sears Wish Book and iPods and Wii’s were, and is more of a Sinterklaas than a product of a good marketing department at Coca-Cola.

Labels: children, Christmas, Museums, Things to do

Labels: Best-of, Christmas, new westminster

Here at Tenth To the Fraser, our editorial team has been kicking around ideas for localizing our Christmas celebrations this year. Our family will attempt to source most of our food locally, and I had in mind to explore local shopping opportunities as well. One of our readers is taking it one better, and plans this year to do all her family Christmas shopping locally.

Labels: Christmas, Columbia St., Mailbag, shopping, Things to do