My First Christmas in Edmonton, by Inge Vermeulen

Between May the 1st when we arrived in Edmonton and September the 15th we moved ten times. I had to go to work because Henry, as an intern, made $40 a month and room and board. That was not quite enough to feed us. I worked as a maid and I made $175 which was just enough for room and board and rent for a furnished room and a little bit of food. I don’t eat Cornflakes any more because I think during those first few months I lived on Cornflakes because that was the cheapest stuff. It always turned out that babysitters could not look after two little children – one and a half and two and a half is a very difficult age. These were such grim times that I really don’t want to talk about them.


The Christmas story was kind of special. We knew that Christmas would be difficult. We knew we would be homesick. We would feel very strange because we had found out some of the Christmas customs in Canada that were quite, quite different from the German ones. So we anticipated it would be difficult.


To have no money for Christmas doesn’t make things easier. We had no money to buy presents. But Henry had made friends with the carpenter at the University Hospital. They discovered a barrel for him which nobody used any more and he painted it red. The carpenters helped him to put a floor in it and wallpaper. That was to be a doll house for the girls.


We didn’t have any money to buy dolls. I made some with string and Popsicle sticks and things like that.


Anyway, we had Christmas parcel from Germany to be opened on Christmas Eve. This is when Christmas takes place in Germany: on Christmas Eve. There is no Santa Claus. There is nothing “Ho, Ho, Ho” about it! It’s a family thing. In Germany, on Christmas Eve, you light the Christmas tree for the first time and you exchange the gifts.


Now lighting the Christmas tree: we were used to a Christmas tree with real candles and we were told, “No, that couldn’t be done here.” And we could see that this would be very dangerous.


So we bought a Christmas tree on the afternoon of the 24th. We got it really, really cheap for 50 cents because nobody else wanted it. It was a terrible, terrible tree! We had one string of twelve lights and if one candle burned out the whole thing went dead. They don’t make them like this any more.


So it was pretty dark. But Henry got his guitar out and he played a little bit of Christmas music. The little girls played in the new doll house. Then all of a sudden somebody knocked at the door really loud. We thought this was strange. Christmas Eve! You don’t go around visiting on Christmas Eve! This is a night for family.


We went to the door and there were friends of ours! Dr. Donald and his wife and his three daughters and they had come to wish us Merry Christmas! They had parcels, and they had two doll carriages for the little girls. They came in and they had brought food. And no sooner were they in, then again, there were people at the door. It was a man who had sold Henry life insurance. He had come with his family. Then the carpenter from the University Hospital came and doctor friends came from the hospital, and neighbours.


One doctor brought a parcel with two dolls for the girls. His mother had bought the dolls and she had made all the clothes for them.


It was absolutely overwhelming. It went on for a long time. The living room was full of people. We sat on the floor, and we laughed and talked. And the little girls were loaded down with presents. They would throw parcels in the air because they didn’t know how to open Christmas presents.


After everybody had left, Henry and I, we were sitting together. We knew that this was the happiest Christmas we had ever had. It was in a strange country. People had gone out of their way to make us feel welcome and liked. And I think it was that night, in Edmonton, that we became Canadians by heart.