What Day Is It? (01/02/13)

Okay what day is it today? I know it is the 2nd day of the year but it seems as we get older it just gets harder to keep track of the days of the week around holiday season. It's like hmm yesterday was let me think and the weekend is coming up umm eventually.

It's even weirder here as the elementary, middle school and high school kids went back today. I guess I have to come to the conclusion after being here for 13+ years that "Jour De L'An" is not a big thing here like it was back in Montreal.

In my long ago youth and my not so long ago 30s and 40s the first day of the year was a huge extended family day. We (the 3-4 Schlewing-Miller kids) would get dragged around to grandparent homes, aunt's and uncle's homes and to my godfather "Mon Oncle Pit" for meal after meal and dessert after dessert.

We would be eating roast turkey, roast pork, "tortiere" (meat pie), "pattes de cochons" (pig's feet or knuckles) and I think there were even vegetables around from time to time but they never really found on this carnivore's plate.

There would be like 30-40 Schlewings, Millers, Gagnons, Champagnes, Soucys, Dumontiers, Boules, etc etc all crowded into these little flats that my relatives rented in places like Verdun, Lasalle, St-Henri and Point St-Charles. For the longest time I thought that all of my aunts and uncles had two or three names for their first names. They were all Ma Tante Denise, Ma Tante Exilda, Ma Tante Pauline, Ma Tante Therese, Ma Tante Simone, the aforementioned Mon Oncle Pit, Mon Oncle Rolland, Mon Oncle Georges, Mon Oncle Hubert, etc. etc. Every year we would hear the same things. My goodness look how much you have grown. It was hilarious!

To say that we were not very rich would not be an understatement. LOL. Like the good Catholics that our Moms were there were always four and five kids in each of these branches of the family. Hard to set aside money when the hand-me downs start having to be replaced by new clothes after being sewed over and over.

I remember the thrill that me and my cousins would have at this time of the year because we would actually get name brand soft drinks in the individual bottles rather than the generic store brand bottles that immediately lost their fizz as soon as they were opened. We were able to have Coca Cola in that funky little 6.5 oz bottle, or Pepsi in that tall wavy or swirly bottle or 7-Up in their unique green bottles.

While all the women would be in the kitchen warming up food, preparing more food and doing endless rounds of dishes (remember this was the 70s, it was different then) my Mom the rebel along with Ma Tante Madeleine (her brother Rolland's wife) would be hanging out with the men drinking fancy brandy and cognacs in these ornate little glasses that would not be out place at a church's altar when they go through that ornate ritual stuff that they do.

The men and male cousins of drinking age would all be in the den or TV room drinking some real fancy liquors. No beer was to be found on "Jour De L'An". That was a day for Courvoisier, aged Scotch or Whiskeys, the finest Canadian Club products and some weird aperitifs that us kids would try to sneak drinks from if the older people weren't watching. I know now that everyone was aware of what Marc, Sylvain, Christian and Claude were up to. We weren't fooling anyone. LOL.

Needless to say we wouldn't be getting home too early on New Year's Day. There was no way in heck that anything of value would be done on the day after "Jour De L'An" in the province of Quebec.

I miss that. I think that's why I had a tough time this holiday season. It was completely devoid of any tradition whatsoever in Schlewing's World. I know that I can't go and re-create the old days. Too many people have left us onto their next journey whatever that may be. I know that going forward I'm going to do my darndest to start some new tradition.

Oh and it's Wednesday! LOL.