In a previous post I wrote about the power of our senses to bring back past memories. I was reading our local newspaper yesterday and came upon a fascinating article entitled, Christmases past live on with plants as reminders by Helen Chesnut. I hadn’t thought about plants as a way to bring back memories but reading her article made me think. And you know she has a point. Bringing home a fresh Christmas tree always brings back childhood memories for me. When I was a child, we lived for many years on a rugged island off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Long before Christmas I would have found the perfect tree. Then a week before Christmas I would haul my mother off into the bush with axe in hand to chop down the tree and haul it home. It’s still a vivid and happy memory for me.
Do you have any plants that bring back memories of Christmases past?
Photo by Randen Pederson
It’s unusually cold here in Victoria, British Columbia this week – freezing winds, ice and snow. Our winters in the Pacific Northwest are for the most part wet and mild, so people are a little shocked and in disbelief. It got me thinking how much weather plays a part in our life stories. And yet we often forget to include these details when we sit down to write our personal history. My mother still vividly recalls how it was pouring rain when she got married in the tiny hamlet of Alert Bay, British Columbia. And I remember one Christmas when I was all of eight years old. My family lived on an isolated island near the northwest tip of Vancouver Island. Rarely did we get snow at Christmas. That year it started snowing after supper on Christmas Eve. I was delighted and so excited that I staid up all night looking out my bedroom window as my little part of the world turned white. It was one of my most memorable Christmases.
