{"id":18527,"date":"2016-12-24T08:18:21","date_gmt":"2016-12-24T13:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=18527"},"modified":"2020-03-26T03:46:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T07:46:37","slug":"a-hometown-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2016\/12\/24\/a-hometown-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"A hometown Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Veteran’s Walk and Clock Tower in downtown Listowel, Ontario. Photo: James Morgan<\/p><\/div>\n

I wasn\u2019t born there, but Listowel, Ontario is basically my hometown. My family moved to this place west of Waterloo and north of London in November 1990. I\u2019ve left and come back a few times due to whatever direction my life was going in but I\u2019ve never missed a Christmas at home in Listowel.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing particularly remarkable about it.\u00a0 Agriculture and manufacturing are what keep the place going. The politics are conservative, there are 12 churches for about 6,000 people, one bar, and two sets of traffic lights. The biggest additions to the community over the past year were a new school and a traffic rotary\/roundabout on the west side. But amidst the ordinariness, it\u2019s home, and it has its charms and memories this time of year.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Millenium<\/a>

Millenium Park, the Public Library, and Christ Anglican Church, Listowel, Ontario. Photo: James Morgan<\/p><\/div>\n

The annual Santa Claus parade used to be on a Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s in the evening with floats, tractors, and trucks covered with lights. An empty storefront got converted into \u201cSanta\u2019s Place\u201d for a week or two before Christmas so children could visit Santa Claus.\u00a0 Polaroid photos with Santa cost $2.00. In high school, there was always the lengthy Christmas assembly on the last day before the break, one of many dates unofficially known as \u201cNational Skip School Day.\u201c The audience always got smaller as the assembly dragged on.<\/p>\n

\"Diana<\/a>

Diana Sweet’s hot chocolate, served in a cup advertising a car dealership. Photo: James Morgan<\/p><\/div>\n

In the years since, Christmas at home is more of a homecoming.\u00a0 There\u2019s a steady stream of visitors at the Morgan house, and we\u2019re part of the steady stream of visitors at the homes of others. Around town, I like to sit and work at one of the big tables in the front of the public library and look up from the screen to slyly observe people I haven\u2019t seen in years. Thoughts go through my head like \u201cWow, I can\u2019t believe how those kids have grown up\u201d \u201cI wonder if they still live in the same house?\u201d or \u201cI can\u2019t believe she married that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s heartwarming to go for an evening walk past the town light displays and stop in for a hot chocolate at Diana Sweet\u2019s Restaurant, Listowel\u2019s oldest eatery, continuously operating since 1920. I go in still expecting to see Bill the former owner behind the counter, standing in front of a shelf of old Greek liquor bottles and portraits of Queen Elizabeth. The hot chocolate is still the best. It comes in a big cup with tons of whipped cream on top and only costs $1.58.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A floodlight beams like the Christmas star on a plywood nativity scene in front of Listowel’s old public utilities building. Photo: James Morgan<\/p><\/div>\n

The Listowel Banner<\/em> newspaper always publishes a free \u201cSeason\u2019s Greetings\u201d section. They print children\u2019s letters to Santa verbatim\u2014complete with spelling mistakes. I always read these, along with the Merry Christmas advertisements from local businesses. In a place as conservative as Listowel, the advertisements are often more like miniature sermons or Sunday School lessons, containing Bible verses and reflections on the Christmas story.<\/p>\n

As Christmas Eve approaches, there\u2019s a huge rush. Minor traffic jams develop at the corner of Main and Wallace. By dusk, Tim Horton\u2019s is closed and coffee addicts go into withdrawal. Families gather in homes. Worshipers gather in churches. It\u2019s the same routine every year, but it\u2019s the home routine, and that\u2019s what makes it special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wasn\u2019t born there, but Listowel, Ontario is basically my hometown. My family moved to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[880,1006,17009,5638],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18527"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22026,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18527\/revisions\/22026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}