Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Recently, a friend, fellow writer, and radio broadcaster, Aggie Stevens, asked my husband and me to share some of our childhood memories of Christmas for her radio program, “Local Matters,” on Peach City Community Radio, 92.9 FM CFUZ, Penticton, BC. You’ll find a recording of the program at https://cfuz.ca/programs/pages/localmatters/ … scroll down to Episode 36.

You’ll hear my “Haida Gwaii” Christmas poem at 5:56 to 8:34 (of 58:02). I wrote this in the mid-1990s, a humorous take on Christmas on a remote island, and the difficulties we sometimes had when winter storms meant flights and ferry rides were cancelled. It seems, as I write this blog post nearly 30 years later, that the Christmas season ferries have been cancelled once again due to hurricane force winds and mechanical issues! I wonder if Santa will make it this year? To find out how Santa made it way back when I wrote that ditty, you can listen to the poem (see above) or you can read it at https://penandpapermamatoo.com/poetry/a-haida-gwaii-christmas/

If you are interested in what Christmas was like back in the 1950s and ’60s in the Haida village of Old Massett, from the viewpoint of a child, you’ll want to listen to Lionel’s childhood memories, recorded in the “Local Matters” program (link above). You can hear about that time in his life on Haida Gwaii by listening from 8:35 to 24:08 (of 58:02).

And if you tune into the same program at point 45:34 to 55:23, you can listen to my own childhood memories of Christmas, growing up in Rutland (Kelowna).

If you’d like to listen to some of Aggie’s previous radio program, “Aggie’s Authors,” also from CFUZ, recorded in 2018 to 2019, you’ll find recordings here: https://cfuz.ca/programs/pages/aggiesauthors/ In these broadcasts, Aggie interviews a wide variety of writers, authors, editors, poets, and other writing-related folks from the local area. Some of the sessions are serious discussions about writing; others are pretty hilarious chats including Christmas holiday season episodes recorded around the kitchen table, lightened up with traditional Christmas eggnog and wine!

If you’d happen to like listening to yours truly, you might want to check out the following episodes (Ep. 1, on editing, wasn’t recorded…):

• 21 Three Friends Celebrate
• 22 Christmas Poem Spoof
• 28 Four Writing Friends
• 30 Five Writing Friends
• 48 Norma Hill: Writing Coach

Well, it’s 7 a.m. on Christmas morning here in Penticton, and time to contact friends and family to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

And Seasons Greetings to each of you, wherever you are!