A very Canadian Christmas

With winters colder than a deep freeze and pancake-flat environs devoid of major ski resorts, Toronto might seem an odd place to visit in December. But for us the purpose was to visit family rather than embark on a wild adventure, and visiting Canada greatly increased our chances of having a white Christmas. 

But on arrival, we were disappointed to hear that it had been an exceptionally mild autumn, and barely any snow had fallen. There had been a good dump of powder a week or so before we arrived, but the temperature had risen again and heavy rain had washed the snow away. 

We spent Christmas day with some in-law relatives at Parry Sound, about three hours’ north of Toronto, which increased our white Christmas chances even more. However, there was no snow on the ground when we arrived on Christmas Eve – we were assured that snow was predicted, but there was a good chance of a chilly but snow-free Christmas day. Where’s the fun in that?

Our non-denominational prayers were answered in the wee hours of Christmas morning. I awoke, in a jetlag induced haze at about 4am to see tiny snowflakes wafting down to rest on a thin, whitish covering on the forest floor. By the time I woke up properly at 9am, a healthy, powdery carpet was visible. Success – my first white Christmas since the 1980s! 

Parry Sound, a secluded collection of well-tended wooden homes arranged around a pretty, forest-lined lake, is a wonderfully peaceful retreat. Not many of the houses on the strip where we stayed seemed to be occupied permanently, instead serving as summer lakeside cabins. But a few hardy souls live there year-round, their houses running off private dirt roads that aren’t maintained by local authorities. In fact the people we stayed with maintained their own road, laying down gravel and ploughing it after heavy snowfalls several times each winter. 

The lake itself was partially frozen when we were there, in the sections where water barely flowed. At one end a collection of rapids collected to form a small waterfall, creating a current that defied freezing. Further up, near a boat launch, a man tiptoed out onto the ice with a sledgehammer. After striking several times into the hard, slippery expanse, he concluded that the ice was three inches thick, and not yet safe to walk around on. Official guidance states that ice should be at least six inches thick before you can walk or skate on it, but people in these parts are known to chance it on four-inch thick ice. 

Christmas day festivities took a decidedly Canadian turn from the get go. We awoke to the smell of pancakes cooking for brunch, which we devoured with fresh berries and maple syrup. It turns out that most maple syrup I have consumed in my life is fake, because the real stuff, tree sap syphoned out of maple trees, is an extremely rare – and expensive – commodity. Our hosts were kind enough to provide the real deal and a bottle of generic “syrup” so that we could taste the difference. 

The present-giving session began with the young generation – two three month old babies, whose haul far outstripped anyone else in the room! Our family had already opened most of our presents before the big day, so we wouldn’t have to cart extra stuff up and back from Parry Sound in an already crowded rental van.

There was something for everyone in our hosts’ quirky take on the Secret Santa tradition. They play slightly differently to your average Kris Kringle or Secret Santa game, where you are assigned a person for whom you buy an anonymous gift. This game was far more conniving. Instead of buying for a specific person everyone buys a generic gift to a certain monetary value, and gifts are placed in the middle of the room. You then draw a number out of a hat to work out who gets first dibs at the pile of presents. You’d think it would be ideal to draw number one, because that gives you pick of the litter, right? Wrong! Number one simply gets to pick a gift and is stuck with it, while the next player can either pick another gift or choose to steal number one’s (already opened) gift. 

The Secret Santa bounty

Players continue to pick or steal gifts in order of the number they have been assigned. If a gift is stolen off someone, that person gets to either open a new present, or steal a gift from someone else. It’s advisable not to get too attached to any particular gift, as it is highly likely another player will pinch it from you at another point in the game. There are limits on how many times a gift can be stolen, and at the end of the game it was a fight to the finish as some of the more popular gifts changed hands until the limit was reached.

I noticed a clear strategy employed by veterans of the game – technically the gifts were contributed anonymously, but afterwards it was pretty clear who had bought what. Many players fought hard to end up with the gift that they contributed to the game! In contrast, Adam and I did not want what we had put in, because our presents were so generic, they weren’t anything that we really needed. Other players had simply bought something they would like and then battled for it. A different strategy altogether! 

It snowed on and off for much of Christmas day. We headed down to the lake with fishing rods and lures, but quickly concluded that it was too shallow to fish off the shore, and too easy to get snagged in the rocks and reeds. Many of the residents had wooden boat pontoons moored just offshore and tethered to trees, but they were frozen in place so we couldn’t pull them back in and jump on.

Don't fall in!

Christmas dinner was divine, with thick, deliciously moist slices of turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, stuffing and beautiful mashed pumpkin (sorry I refuse to call it squash) smothered in rich gravy. For dessert, there were individual baked cheesecakes with a choice of Toblerone, Ferrero Rocher or candy egg flavours. What a feast, and what a relief to enjoy it in a cosy heated house looking out on a crisp winter’s day in a snow-flecked forest! A far more agreeable climate to quaff this kind of food than when it is 30 degrees outside with the harsh Australian sun beating down! 

We returned to Toronto on Boxing Day, passing through the outer suburbs in time for another North American tradition – the sales. In true North American spirit, sales are not confined to just one day, but are held over Boxing Week, a term that up to now I had never heard of. 

Captivating Parry Sound

We parked outside an enormous drive in mall, the kind where a sprawling one story warehouse-type building squats amid a sea of car parking. This design suits lazy types who can drive up to their preferred store, go shopping, and are within staggering distance of their car when they are done. I suppose it makes sense if you are buying heavy items like furniture. 

Most of the shops in the mall were pretty underwhelming, and I can’t say Canadian fashion exactly screams style, but we did manage to walk away with a few cut-price bargains. We had to work for them though – it was quite a challenge wading through the heaving masses of couples, families and groups of teenagers. 

The most impressive shop in the mall was Outdoor World, a department store-sized behemoth selling anything adventure-related. Its auditorium-style interior was adorned with a brutal display of taxidermy – stuffed bears, moose and reindeer, several bird species and even a few (and I’m praying fake) polar bears. At the entrance was a giant freshwater fish aquarium, housing among other things, a meaty-looking catfish. A hunting section stocked rifles, air guns and hunting kit. Adam was inspired by the impressive range of hunting and fly-fishing outfits, including camouflage gumboots and those enormous wading galoshes that come up to your waist.