My Village

Christmas Eve at Baba Yuzak’s tiny house in Alvena, Saskatchewan was the loudest kind of love. The kind that didn’t ask permission. You came in the back door, through the kitchen, and somehow the whole family fit, even though by any normal math the place was too small.

The house had one bedroom maybe 2. If it looked small to me as a child it must have been impossibly small. Yet that kitchen - Stove, sink, and enough chopping space for one - fed what felt like an army.

My parents had 5 kids. Uncle Bernard 10. Aunt Regina had 2. Aunt Phyllis 4. Uncle victor had one. By the time everyone arrived, Christmas Eve felt less like a gathering than a migration.

The day always promised snow. Enough that someone would get stuck. Shovelling wasn't an interruption; it was part of Christmas. And the cold - Prairie cold - meant every car carried emergency supplies: tuna and candles in the glove compartment, shovel and sleeping bags in the trunk.

Myra and I would be in the back seat, cuddling and sniffing our new plastic dolls. Santa always put them under the tree for us and we opened them before we drove to Alvena.

The same meal every Christmas Eve. Twelve dishes, served one after the other over several hours. It began with a warm wheat, apple, poppy seed, honey soup and ended with sweet squares filled with chocolate, nuts, and candied fruits. And in between, everything else. Pierogies, two kinds, each with their own sauce. Holubtsi (cabbage rolls). Buckwheat and rice. Fried fish because it was a meatless meal. Sauerkraut soup. Babka, the special braided yellow bread.

The meal honored Christ’s 12 apostles. Looking back, I wonder if it was also a loaves- and- fishes miracle. Where did the dishes come from? Where did everyone sit? Yoi Boisha. It miraculously flowed.

The wooden house had to be well insulated. Forced heat. Windows closed. Pots boiling. Oven blasting. Adults smoking and doing vodka shots, singing and laughing. Kids under the table, in the corners, piled up everywhere, some sleeping in the pile of fur coats.

And we knew the homemade root beer was in the cellar. We also knew how to access it and open the bottles once the adults were engaged. We’d execute stealth raids, then find a secret spot to drink and eat stolen cookies.

Back then, children were expected to be ‘seen and not heard.’ Which suited us fine. The adults were boring, while our antics were lively and carefully structured. There was a pecking order and everyone knew their spot in it.

At the table, the adults raised their voices and talked over each other. Men on one side, women on the other. I remember Auntie Lillian mimicking someone, changing her voice, then laughing uproariously. Even as a kid, I knew she wasn’t being nice. My dad was the peacemaker. He’d calm the unruly, drop his arm over someone who was upset. I caught concern in my mother’s eyes but didn’t understand what was going on.

Now, thing is, when you grow up in a big family, you learn social skills the way you learn to swim. You don’t get a lesson. You just get thrown in. Most of the time you come up spluttering, then you figure it out.

Kenny, Donnie, Raymond, and I were the eldest. When we grew out of chasing each other around, we took our cues from our parents and taught ourselves Kaiser, a card game. We’d go at it for hours. Later, driving, smoking, and booze became the focus. That’s what tends to happen when you’ve got a lot of cousins, not a lot of supervision, and a whole culture that treats “mischief” like a rite of passage.

I used to think the adults were background noise. But now I’m older, and I see what was happening. They were maintaining something. A net. A system. Messy, imperfect, sometimes sharp, yes. But it held and was strong enough to catch all of us.

                         ***

The next day, we’d travel a few miles to Baba Oleskiw’s farm for Christmas Day. Different energy. Different rhythm. Baba and Gido had three kids who produced 13 grandkids. We slept like sardines in a can, on the kitchen floor. We hung Gido’s grey woolen socks on the kitchen cabinet handles for Santa to fill, with peanuts, nickels, and candy.

Myra and I always preferred Christmas Day. We knew these cousins better. Baba Oleskiw spoke English and, to us, felt like a second mother.

.

Baba Yuzak was gruff, spoke Ukrainian, and her face looked like a ten-day-old apple.

We spent many summers at Baba Oleskiw's farm, so our patterns and rules were already in place. We could get to having fun without missing a beat. That’s the whole thing with a village. You don’t have to negotiate who you are every time you meet.

                                     ***

Christmas dinner at Baba’s was turkey and all the trimmings. Kolbasa and ham side dishes, and mountains of shortbread and fruit cake. Nuts in bowls scattered around the house.

My Gido could crack walnuts between his thumb and index finger. He also had a small green rubber change purse that opened when he squeezed it. He’d tip out the change and throw it into the air to watch us kids scramble. It was chaos. And it was joy.

There was laughter, music and dancing. I still love Christmas carols because of those days. Years later, when I was living far from home, my dad would call every Christmas and sing “Oh holy night.” Sometimes he'd reached the high note sometimes he wouldn't.

Either way, by the time he finished I was crying

                      ***

Writing this has made me think about the choices many young adults are making today - living further from family, partnering later or not at all, choosing not to have children. I'm not judging these choices. The world they are navigating is different from the one that raised me.

What I do wonder about is the village.

The one I grew up in wasn't just a place. It was a web of cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles, traditions, obligations, laughter, arguments, and love. It didn't happen by accident. It was built over generations and tended, year after year.

That old village is fading. Something new is taking its place.

I find myself wondering what tomorrow's village will look like - and who will gather around its table.