Page 8 - Giv'er Miramichi Magazine - Christmas-Winter Giver 2024

A Christmas Photo

By Johannes Bosma

Fourteen years old and he couldn’t believe it. He was
fourteen and he still had to spend Christmas Day at his
grandparents’ place. He was much too old for one of those
boring, family gatherings. Yet, here he was, already on the
way, sitting in the back seat, and counting telephone poles
while he still had something interesting to do.
With any luck they’d have a flat tire or maybe the
bridge would be out as it was so often whenever he really
wanted to get across. It was too late for that now. His father
had already turned into the lane. In fact, his parents and
pest of a baby sister were already in hysterics, inexplicably
looking forward to the torture that loomed ahead.
The torture had already begun as the car stopped and
his family collapsed into uncontrollable laughter. Then he
saw the reason. It was Uncle John, the clan clown, who
had started his antics earlier than last year. He was on the
front lawn, propped up against Gramps’ blue spruce,
wearing nothing but a one-piece suit of red underwear, a
blackened nose and an old top hat under which a super
wide grin stretched itself to both sides of the brim. What a printed, were taped to the outside of each spine. Jeremy
way to begin Christmas ’94. wondered if they had ever caught Uncle John on film.
Once inside the door, he was faced with the almost Yeah, right. That was probably why there were so many
impossible task of weaving, like a focused running back, albums. He might as well have a look before they came
through the receiving line of relatives which included looking for him. His eyes searched the titles and landed on
huggers, kissers, hair-mussers, and cheek-pinchers. In the Christmas section.
concert with this horror came the barrage of demoralizing Christmas, 1942. That was before Jeremy’s father was
comments: “Will you look at how he’s grown!”, “Is this even born. In fact, that was the Christmas he repeatedly
our little Jeremy?”, “Don’t tell me he’s already potty- asked his grandfather about because as a boy he found it
trained!”, and the kicker, “He’s still sooo cute!” Jeremy so fascinating. The “old country,” as Gramps referred to
thought he was Indiana Jones trying to escape the Temple it, had been occupied by a foreign army. His grandparents
of Doom as he desperately tried to find a way out. If only and eldest aunt looked happy enough in the photo but
he could find a way out of Christmas Day. Gramps had pointed out that only practical gifts were
Then, as they shifted their attention and pounced on exchanged and even St. Nicholas couldn’t get through
his baby sister, Jeremy slipped unnoticed into the extra because of the war. Nevertheless, Gramps always had a
bedroom, referred to by Gramps as the Blue Room. It was way of making the best of things; there he was carving a
blue alright. The curtains, walls, rug, and bed covering small chicken for Christmas dinner. Was that a tear sliding
were all in different shades of the colour. And yet, even in down his cheek?
combination, they were no match for the depressing layers Christmas 1955. That was the family’s first Christmas
of blue inside of him. Somehow, the room looked different in Canada, their adopted country. They had only few
this year. The usual junk piles of odds and ends were gone. possessions in this photo but their faces showed nothing
On the far wall, Gramps had built a bookcase but instead but genuine contentment. There was his dad, just six years
of books on the shelves there were old and new photo old. He looked exactly like that Grade 1 picture of Jeremy,
albums, all crowding against each other. The years, crudely still prominently displayed on his grandparent’s mantle out

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