A Saltspring Christmas - Chicken Soup for the Soul
And some festive silliness from me & Local Anxiety
So here’s a holiday flashback… I originally wrote this for The Globe and Mail in 1990... A few years later it was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul. For a long time, for a lot of people, this was their fave thing I’d written. Merry merriness!
A Saltspring Christmas
It was the Winter of 1987 and I desperately needed a break - from everything. I'd just quit my job, split up with my long-time girlfriend and was discovering the true meaning of stress. So I filled a suitcase with books, clothes and more books, loaded my computer into the trunk of my car and drove off to catch a ferry to the least stressful place I could think of — Saltspring Island.
I told everyone I would be staying with friends and that they didn't have a phone. I lied. I checked into the Saltspring Hotel.
I'd heard that this was the second version of the hotel, built right where the first one had burned down. My friend, Kevin, told me his family used to own the old one and that the new one was supposed to be haunted. No such luck. There were no ghosts and hardly any guests either. It was Christmas-time and not many tourists show up in Saltspring for Christmas.
There was a man down at the other end of the hall who was in town because his mother was ill and he wanted to be nearby and there was me in my corner room overlooking the harbour and the parking lot.
I vowed not to make any phone calls and I came awfully close. A few days after I arrived I made three calls to friends -- but that was it. Geographically, I was a ferry ride away from home, but I decided that in my imagination, I was somewhere far away. So I wrote letters, read books and watched far too much TV.
Christmas Eve I didn't feel like being alone, but I could only find one open restaurant in town and it was open just long enough to serve me dinner and hustle me out so the staff could get home to their families. I went back to my room, but the TV was just showing Christmas specials about love and family and togetherness, so I went downstairs to the pub. Not much action there either. It wasn't empty but close to it.
I finished my cider and was about to leave when the bartender offered me a special coffee. I thanked him, but told him I didn't drink coffee. "You'll still like this," he said, and handed me an elaborate concoction in a black toddy mug with a rim of fresh whipped cream slithering down the side.
If there was coffee in the drink I certainly didn't taste it. It was sweet, smooth and potent. The bartender and I started talking. He was up for a job managing a new restaurant. He liked working at the bar though, except that since he was one of the only singles on staff, he'd drawn the Christmas shift. He was the same age as me, 25. We talked until pretty much everyone else had left and when he started tidying up, I got out my wallet to pay my tab. "It's on the house," he said. "Merry Christmas."
I went back to my room and slept until 10 a.m. Christmas day. Then I switched on the TV. There was Scrooge and Christmas services and a selection of televangelists. The movie channel was showing a variety of movies I'd intentionally skipped at the theatre, but considering the competition I settled on Young Sherlock Holmes as I ate my brunch - an apple and some cookies I'd bought because I knew everything on the island was closed for Christmas. It was the only time during my self-imposed exile that I felt lonely. I thought of calling someone, but the long-distance feeling wasn't what I wanted. It was the kind of loneliness that comes from not seeing anyone you know for two weeks.
So I took a shower, wrote a couple of contemplative letters, started flipping the channels again and then the phone rang.
"Hi, this is Stephen," said the voice on the other end.
I had no idea who in the world Stephen was.
"My mother just brought a whole Christmas dinner for me. There's turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and vegetables. The works. If you wanted to come down to the bar and share it with me..."
The bar? Stephen was the bartender. "Are you sure it's okay?"
"Sure," said Stephen. "That's why I'm asking. It's Christmas."‘
So I put some clothes on, went downstairs and there was Stephen, serving up the kind of Christmas feast that Scrooge delivered to the Cratchit household after his change of heart. His mother had brought him all the things he'd mentioned and more. There were a half-dozen metal bowls with crisp tin-foil covers. Every time he peeled back another bit of foil something else new and tasty was revealed.
After he saw that I was shy about eating too much he practically scolded me. "There's plenty," he said. And there was too - until we finished it. And we finished a lovely bottle of red wine. Then we started on another bottle.
He had a TV in the bar and as we ate we watched the Christmas classic, Top Gun.
And, just after that, Stephen's girlfriend showed up.
When they started snuggling I got up to leave, but Stephen stopped me. "You're not going anywhere. This is Christmas and you're my guest," he said as if, just maybe, he was kind of proud to have a guest for Christmas.
Then his brother arrived, and Stephen introduced me like we were long-lost school buddies. And when his sister, whom he hadn't seen in months, appeared and hugged her two brothers, Stephen turned to her and said, "You give Mark a hug too; today he's a member of our family." She did, too. And I probably blushed.
It was well after two a.m., and I'd met a whole collection of Stephen's friends and relatives, before I finally made my way back up to my room - fuller and drunker than I think I've ever been and grinning away.
It was the most the most beautiful Christmas I've ever had, and I never did get up the heart to tell Stephen I was Jewish. That day though, I don't think it would have mattered.
And to celebrate getting to attend the end of Bruce Springsteen's North American tour in Vancouver - a Springsteen Christmas song I wrote & performed with Art Norris a few (dozen) years ago as Impolite company. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer - Springsteen style! Ho ho, eh ☃️🎄
And a Christmas classic from Local Anxiety…
This is currently at over 26,000 views… The kid is my niece, Emma. The tree-cutter is my long-time Local Anxiety comedy partner, Kevin Crofton, his wife is my wife, Rayne Benu and I’m Santa.
Thanks! Happy Chanukah!
Thanks! A nice erev Christmas gift! Much appreciated! Happy Chanukah, wherever this one finds you.