Me, the Hallmark junkie wrote this after watching back to back movies
2:44 PM 2001
It is December 15th, almost a week before Christmas, and you would never know it. I wrote a piece a few years ago called “Searching For Christmas” and it seems, as the years go by, it disappears more and more. The Martha Stewart Christmas CD plays for the umpteenth time, and after 17 Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel I just can’t watch another. Or can I?
I had something happen to me this year that was life altering. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it, and it has literally changed my perspective on life. It was almost like learning there was no Santa Claus when I was a child. That innocence that reinforced the goodness of mankind suddenly vanished. So, I sit here and ask myself, how many Christmases do I have left? What if I had not lived, and missed Christmas this year? Well, I did live, and Christmas is almost around the corner.
So I try to snap out of this funk and remember. I remember the smell of Christmas trees and their sharp pine pungent scent, and the smell of home baking in the air. To be honest, the last years of my childhood Christmases were not spent smelling a fresh evergreen tree. It was gazing at the latest model of Sears “best in the line ” decorator trees in my Grandmother’s living room. I remember the delicate fragile glass ornaments that belonged to years gone by and the blue lights on the tree.
I still hear Miss Watson playing the church organ next to the Christmas tree at Trinity Anglican Church in Cowansville, Quebec which also shone with blue lights. I felt like it was something that was decided upon one Altar Guild Day in one fell swoop of a pact. Can I still hear these women talking with their glasses perched on their noses and fluffing their short tight perms? Did these church ladies decide that blue lights, and only blue lights, should be on a Christmas tree? I am positive that’s what happened and then they all went home and changed their lights to blue in a no nonsense way.
Memories then flood my mind of two weeks after Christmas in 1995 when my sons and I stood on top of a water- soaked carpet looking sadly at a completely black Christmas tree. Staring at the remainder of a horrible fire that burned everything the day before, my oldest son wondered if his purchase of one small TY Beanie Baby monkey started the fire that turned our lives upside down for over a year. He is very much like his mother. We dwell on things and don’t give them up. We are good at that.
But Christmas went on the next year and no one was a Negative Nancy. We still watched Charlie Brown’s Christmas and baked cookies and hung up stockings and I still left small presents on the door steps of the elderly. So what to do? How do I get out of this Downer Dan mood? I decided to make Butter Tarts–now that would make me feel festive.
Twenty minutes later after listening to Loreena McKennitt singing “Good King Wenceslas” for the umpteenth time, I take the tarts from the oven. They smell wonderful and I know they will be enjoyed. I turn the Martha Stewart Christmas CD off and file it away, not to be played for… let’s say…at least a day. Charlie Brown’s Christmas by Vince Guaraldi fills the air and I dance. I realize the holidays are what you make out of it and not to expect anyone to drop the Holiday spirit outside your bathroom door– because it just ain’t going to happen. Christmas just isn’t a season–it’s a feeling sometimes being torn for the familiar and just a chance to feel old feelings twice.
BIG NEWS As of November 1, W network is being rebranded as Hallmark Canada– Be still my heart-– Click here
Where Was Hallmark’s ‘Christmas Festival of Ice’ Filmed? CLICK HERE
Jean Tischart Filmed in Almonte. I was lucky to be hired as an extra. It was a fun full interesting day. I was sitting in the bleachers, downtown Almonte beside the Post Office where they had created a cute Santa’s village & ice sculpture making & judging area. And yes you can see me in the movie very near the end of it. Cute movie with lots of great Almonte scenes.
Katie Tiffany Christmas Festival of Ice was filmed two year ago…
Filmed in the Ottawa Valley click here
The Rooftop Christmas Tree in Carleton Place (2016)
Seeds of Love–Almonte Cinema – Then and Now
What You Didn’t Know About the House on High Street
We Don’t Live in Lanark County — We Live in Hallmark County
This is from our gal .Tiffany MacLaren in Almonte– Thank you!!HI LindaI hope you are well! I noticed you shared a post with an article about Movies in Almonte so I thought you might in interested in this list. The Evil Twin was on Lifetime this weekend and can be watched on YouTube for free also. Pretty cheesy but lots of fun local sightings.Often the titles are only working titles and change before they are released (I imagine there is a lot of duplication) so the titles in my list could be wrong. I update when I get new information
lindaseccaspina 