On Christmas morning, there is no one rattling Elizabeth’s door to wake her up. She sleeps in until about 8:30 a.m. and opens her eyes to see Santa has left a wool work sock at the foot of her bunk. Inside the sock are the personal care items that can sometimes be hard to come by at the DI, like a razor, toothbrush, and toothpaste amongst other things.
She can hear there are already several other guests up and chatting in the foyer. Turns are taken on the phone making phone calls to family members. Around the building there are mixed emotions. There are a lot of people here, each with a different approach to Christmas. Some friends meet in the main dining area. They hug each other and exchange gifts they’ve been squirreling away. Others, though, have no one to share Christmas with and insist on treating it as any other day. They keep to themselves with a sort of calloused resignation.
“I’ve been here for three years, but one of those years I spent Christmas in my own apartment,” says Elizabeth Barry. “Now that was lonely.”
It obviously could never be the same as it was when we were little, in a house with loved ones, she says, but she appreciates the efforts staff and volunteers make to bring the Christmas spirit into the DI while the building still operates just as it would any other day.
“It’s still Christmas, though,” she says. “We get to lay in bed. They certainly do a good job of it.”
The one thing everyone has in common at the Drop-In Centre is they’ve encountered some pretty hard times along the road that’s brought them to where they are now. Whether a person has lost family, or their security, Christmas can be a painful reminder of that loss. As the Drop-In Centre goes about its regular routine of appointments to keep, and sheets to be washed, and floors to be cleaned, it’s understandable, Elizabeth says, how others might not be aglow with the Christmas spirit.
“I’ll tell you the truth. If I hadn’t come here under the circumstances that I did, I don’t know how I would have felt about Christmas,” she says. In the coming months she plans to move to a seniors’ residence. “My husband passed away on the ninth of August, and I came here on the 16th or 17th, so only about eight days later. That was tough. Christmas I can handle. I’m grateful for anything they do.”
By the afternoon the smell of 50 roasting turkeys and 400 lbs. of potatoes circulates across the second floor and up the stairwells. The dining tables fill up quickly in anticipation. There are about two dozen volunteers in the building helping prepare and serve the meal. But what really matters to Brad Booey is spending it with his girlfriend.
“If it weren’t for my girlfriend, it would just be another day. I’d try to forget Christmases I’ve had before,” says Brad. “With her I feel family and love. I was with her last Christmas, and even though we didn’t get to sleep together, it felt like Christmas.”
She is the closest thing he has to family, he says, and without her, he’d feel alone. His parents are deceased now, and he doesn’t want to remember Christmases spent at home with them. According to Brad, there are many guests at the DI who are alone and spend the day trying to “put the feeling off.”
“I get emotional because I miss my family. I think if you ask a lot of other people you’ll find the same thing,” he says. “That’s why you see people getting drunk. They’ve got a lot of problems with their families and everything that they’re trying to mask because they love them so much.”
After Christmas dinner, 1200 plates are run through the dishwasher. Some clients have friends they can go visit. Some clients have a regular bed they settle into for the night. All the dinner tables are wiped down and stacked against the wall. The dining area floor is swept and sanitized, and then clients start laying down plastic mats shoulder-to-shoulder in long rows the length of the room.
Gord Barnes says he doesn’t like it when family members back East take pity on him. They dourly ask over the phone how he’s doing and he’s quite proud to say he’s doing fine. He admits he’s a bit of a loner, but he enjoys his own company. People are perfectly capable of doing Christmas alone, he says. It’s tough but it’s possible. He says the trick is to not watch any sad television shows.
“Here, they’re doing the best they can under the circumstances of how many people they have here. They’re not going to get it like ‘ho, ho, ho’ family,” says Gord. He’s a client on a ‘transitional floor’ planning to move into an apartment soon. “It’s quite nice, though. Last year we got to stay on our floor all day and we got a present through the Christmas Wish.”
Christmas Wish is a program whereby clients can write an item they would like on a wish list and participating families try to accommodate them by each picking one item to purchase and deliver. They might wish for a new jacket or boots or a gift certificate.
“Of course there was my friend who asked for tobacco last year,” Gord says with a laugh. “He ended up receiving a toothbrush and comb, and he has no hair or teeth! He gave it all away and kept the bag. But it doesn’t make any difference, does it? It’s the thought that counts. Christmas is what you make it.”
Christmas is a time we share with the people near us and remember loved ones who can’t be with us. At the DI, there are hundreds of people making up hundreds of Christmases together today, and each one is a little different.
Great article Ken! I love the bit about the guy who got the toothbrush and comb for Christmas and he had no hair or teeth. Classic.