Christmas 2025: For McDonald, decorating takes over at Christmas

BY SCOTT STEPHENSON

For Walton correspondent Jo-Ann McDonald, Christmas means faith and family. “It’s about having that family connection - and the church connection. We were good church-goers for many, many years. Since the Walton church closed, I will admit it’s not as high on my list, but Christmas Eve is a definite for me,” she told The Citizen. “Our family’s tradition was always to go to church on Christmas Eve - from the time our children were little, that’s what we did. And then we’d come back, and just have snacks and family time. I don’t necessarily get all my kids to come to Christmas Eve service with me now, but I still get there. That’s the main thing.”

 

While attending a Christmas church service is a holiday highlight, McDonald and her husband Rick also enjoy some slightly more secular local traditions every year. “Of course, we have to go to the Santa Claus parade in Brussels,” she declared. “We used to go to Seaforth all the time, but we don’t do that one anymore. Our kids went to school in Seaforth, so that’s why we went. Now, not so much. We still go into Brussels, well, because we should be there!”

 

Family gatherings have evolved over time as the clan has expanded. Now that her children are grown, they each help put their own spin on the annual festive feast. “The kids now bring something they think is special for Christmas - they’ll bring dips, or something Rick and I probably wouldn’t make, or have if they didn’t bring it along,” she explained. “We’ve actually had some Christmases at my children’s homes, instead of it always being here, because their homes are bigger, and we’re a bigger group now - we have seven grandchildren… my youngest grandchild is five - primetime. And then we have a six and seven, nine, and it goes all the way up to 12.”

 

Jo-Ann has a lot of practice with large Christmas celebrations. “My mother used to always have all my brothers and sisters over, until she was past hosting it at her home,” she recalled. “Then we all started making Christmas dinner. My brother did the potatoes and turnip, I did the turkey, someone else did something else, and then we all arrived with Christmas dinner; there were 25 of us or something, but it was a really big house.” 

 

These days, that part of her family still gets together for the holidays, but they’ve moved the date to relieve some of the pressure from everybody’s holiday schedule. “I have my brothers and sisters either before or after Christmas rather than the same day as our own family, and that’s fine; we have a better visit that way,” she said.

 

Jo-Ann has many happy Christmas memories, but she also feels at home with the fact that the Christmas season can bring forth a wide-range of emotions, well beyond the simple sentiments found in the card aisle. “When we were growing up, my grandmother lived with us - she lived upstairs, in a duplex, and we lived downstairs. Come the first of December, she started making shortbread cookies - and they never lasted until Christmas!” she exclaimed fondly. “We were always up there, asking if we could have a cookie. We had our ‘visiting time’ and our ‘playtime’ and our ‘eat Grandma’s cookies’ time.” 

 

The sweetness of that memory is also tinged with the flavours of grief. “Christmas could be sad because my same grandmother died [around that time]. On Christmas Day she called, and we went to her house. And the ambulance came and took her and she died on Boxing Day. So that’s what we remember,” she said. 

 

Now, every December gives Jo-Ann the chance to keep her grandmother’s Christmas cookie legacy going strong. “We have to make her shortbread cookies,” she confessed to The Citizen. “She made the best cookies - and to be honest, after 48 years, I still have not mastered it exactly. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. But I keep trying. One of these days.”

 

Her most vivid Christmas memory is also an unusual one. “This probably isn’t a favourite - it was kind of another sad Christmas,” Jo-Ann warned. She was pregnant with her third child at the time, and had a job working in town. While she worked, her mother was taking care of her two older children. “We were to head down and pick them up on Christmas Eve, and it stormed, so she ended up just keeping them,” she recalled. “Getting up on Christmas morning with no children when I was supposed to have them here was a very, very sad Christmas.” 

 

When the Christmas season comes around, the decorating process goes into full swing. “Every room has a theme,” Jo-Ann explained to The Citizen. “One room is the snowman theme, one is reindeers, the bathroom is penguins, and Santa gets the main room. I have lots of decorations. It takes more than one day to put them all out.” Some pieces hold deep sentimental value. “When my mother left her home, my father had painted a five- or six-foot-tall Santa with the elves. Growing up, they were always out front, so when we cleaned out her house, Santa and his elves came here.” She compares it with the one she painted herself. “I had painted a Santa previously, but my dad’s Santa is better. And it’s probably 60 years old, and it has to go outside.”

 

For Jo-Ann, the secret to an extra-special Christmas is remembering to appreciate simple pleasures. “When we were kids, if you got an orange in your stocking and some peanuts, you were as happy as could be. And if you got a pair of socks, that was great,” she pointed out, “Now everything has to be electronic, or very expensive. Everyone needs to get away from being so commercialized. To be honest, I give my grandchildren a small gift, but I give their parents money for their education, because that’s going to cost an arm and a leg. So don’t ask me for a computer for Christmas, or a ‘Switch’. If I don’t know what it is, don’t ask me for it - you’re getting pyjamas.”