Were you able to make it out to this year's Christmas
Reflections?
Christmas Reflections is a great way to celebrate the holidays
with family and friends. Christmas displays and twinkling
lights, horse-drawn wagon rides through the Park, hot chocolate,
live music, crafts and more.
See a small sample of this year's sold out Christmas
Reflections.
The traditional "Christmas Pie" was a unique way to receive a
gift at the dinner table. Each person at the table pulled a ribbon
that was attached to a gift in the middle of the table. Learn more
about this festive tradition in the video below.
The best place for last minute Christmas Shopping... in
1905.
Reed's Bazaar, was one of Edmonton's premiere shopping centres
at this time; offering the enticing smell of roasting coffee beans,
late November Christmas shopping and, in 1905, the presence of a
'Santa-man.' We often like to think that the commercialization of
Christmas is a recent phenomenon, but as early as Edmonton had the
money to spend, and the places to spend it, they were, in a way,
embracing a modern Christmas.
Reed's is also a location of crafts, while in Masonic Hall you'll
find Father Christmas himself, along with food, cider, and a
Wishing Tree. Father Christmas appears here as immigrants from
England saw him: tall and thin and stately, but still familiar.
Others coming to Edmonton at this time probably saw him differently
depending on where they came from. For Americans, he was Santa
Claus, for the French, Père Noel. For some Eastern slavs, he was
Ded Moroz, or Grandfather Frost.
It is interesting to note that some saw Santa Claus as we
think of him today, what is often called his 'Coca-cola' outfit.
This image of Santa was popularized by the company in the thirties
and afterwards, but was not actually invented by them, as is
popularly thought. More credit can go to the 1823 poem 'A Visit
from St. Nicholas,' more popularly known as 'The Night Before
Christmas.' The poet was the first one to describe to his audience
Santa climbing down chimneys, being a bit more rotund than Father
Christmas, and the first to name all of his reindeer.
Whether as St. Nick or one of his many other guises, however,
Father Christmas has been around a great deal longer than
Edmonton's 200 years.
- By Tom Long