I hear a train a coming … it’s coming around the bend. It’s the annual CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) Holiday Special coming back to town again. The Holiday Train kicks off the Christmas spirit in the Annandale area. Weather permitting, it challenges the Fourth of July parade for attendance.
As most of you know the CPR Holiday Train is a fundraiser for food shelves, and it has been stopping in Annandale for a number of years because Annandale is a serious contributor when it comes to feeding the hungry.
To me personally, I get very excited seeing the children, parents and seniors coming out to celebrate Christmas. It brings us together and we really need to love one another during these terrorist-threatened times. I’d like to see more seniors in attendance. Hopefully next year an organization will consider renting a bus to bring our seniors who lack transportation from the Annandale Care Center and senior residences to take in our holiday activity.
It would be great for these folks who are able to climb aboard a bus without any assistance to get an opportunity to see this decorated train. Being old doesn’t mean they have no interest in seeing this festive event. I challenge someone to make this happen. At 77, I still get excited about the coming of Christmas, especially in a small town.
Seventy years ago as a kid I’d really get antsy when December rolled around. Living in a small Canadian town about twice the size of Annandale, Christmas wasn’t commercialized very much in the ’40s. The stores had extended hours, open until 9 p.m. for a few days before Christmas but closing at 5 or earlier on Christmas Eve. I enjoyed walking down Main Street during this time. It seemed each store had a speaker outside playing different carols as you passed their store front.
The cedar light posts were decorated with real spruce wreaths; and the town hall had a beautiful nativity scene that we anxiously waited to see.
Store windows were always covered with frost so you had to go inside to see anything. Occasionally I would stop and scratch some weird design on the heavily frosted panes. At this age I knew that there wasn’t a real Santa. I was shopping to buy my parents a gift that hopefully I could enjoy after I gave it to them. They went their own way looking to buy me a surprise gift. This was a time when kids only got one sort of a big gift along with the usual socks, underwear or an item of clothing. Even back then clothes weren’t very exciting, especially if your aunty Mary knit you a sweater that didn’t fit. You had to smile and pretend to like it.
Connecting Santa
It was odd though, most of us kids who attended Sunday school for whatever reason connected Christmas to the baby Jesus and Santa. With Christmas approaching we turned our thoughts to the manger, the three wise men and then somehow Santa got intermixed.
Christmas was really never about gifts only. It was about food, food and more food. It also meant relatives and friends dropping over to visit and the table was set and reset all day long. It truly was a humongous feast and all us kids the next day would brag about how much we ate and how stuffed we got. The next day was Boxing Day if you lived in Canada. What was special about this day? It was the second day to again pig out and go over to a friend’s place and see what they got for Christmas and sit at their kitchen table and load up with more food.
Living in a small town we were somewhat sheltered from the real world. We were not aware of anyone not having enough to eat or doing without a turkey for Christmas. Everyone had a job and a garden in summer, so life was good. We didn’t realize that families with children living in the cities were not always as fortunate as we.
When Jean and I moved to Annandale in 2000 we couldn’t understand why there was a need for a food shelf. We didn’t observe anyone destitute on Main Street. As an adult I didn’t realize that we had poverty, unemployment and hungry families in our community. It just didn’t show.
The need is great
In 2001 your food shelf gave out 42,000 pounds of food. This year we will distribute close to 320,000 pounds. Why? The recession is over and more people are back at work, but that has not fixed our problems. Many are working today for much less than before the recession. I refer to these workers as the "working poor."
We as a country must encourage our youth to get a better education rather than dropping out of school. This country is in dire need of more skilled trades, but skill trades come with an education. Skilled trades pay middle class salaries. As crazy as it might sound, maybe college tuitions should be free if a student completes college? We need to understand entitlement should not be a given. We need to go back to the ’40s through ’70’s when there was a family unit guiding their children. We should realize we have to earn $15 an hour, not demand it. Our government can fix the issues, but until it does something we must feed the hungry or poverty will continue to spiral. We must feed the hungry until they are able to feed themselves.
Your food shelf is blessed; we thank you for your financial support, and from our 55-plus volunteers, have a wonderful healthy family Christmas.
Ed Skomoroh is president of the Annandale Food Shelf. The holiday train will arrive at about 7:15 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12, near downtown Annandale.