A family Christmas skating party, including Neve Campbell
Although she earned household-name status starring in six seasons of the TV series "Party of Five," Ontario's Neve Campbell is now better known for her film work, in particular her mesmerizing role two years ago as principal dancer in Robert Altman's enchanting ballet-school drama The Company, which Campbell cowrote and produced. Not surprisingly, her all-time favourite Christmas present was ballet lessons, which led to her earning a place with the National Ballet School of Canada at age nine. "I was sold on The Nutcracker when I was six. I fell in love and I said, ‘I'm going to do that!' And so my dad bought me ballet lessons."
Christmas as a kid meant ice-skating on lakes and, these days, listening to old Bing Crosby records. "We're a big group of people, 30 or 40, from all different families who get together in a small town outside of Guelph, Ont., and have a big dinner and go Christmas carolling. That's been a long-time tradition. I'm a sucker for the music, for carols. I'm really cheesy about it. I have to have carols playing while we're decorating the tree. And turkey dinner is fantastic. But I love eggnog, and my mom would always -- a Dutch tradition -- give us the Kinder eggs with little toys in them. I love those!"
Wendy Mesley remembers yucky foods - and hiking to get the tree
Wendy Mesley makes no bones about her relationship with that most derided of Christmas vegetables -- the innocent brussels sprout. "Yuk! Christmas is the one time of the year you're not allowed to say you don't like brussels sprouts! But it's all about ritual; it's not about how it tastes. We were forced to eat turnips as kids, and we continue to inflict the same vegetables onto our children year after year." It's the disobedient, naughty pleasures Mesley remembers most. "Christmas was a very modest affair in my family. It was more about getting together and creating mischief -- like filling up balloons full of water and lobbing them at the neighbours. We were certainly punished for that. They were very unfair parents," says the Gemini-winning "Marketplace” host with a chuckle.
"One special thing we do these days that's lovely is trudge for about half an hour into the woods and chop down a tree. There's the annual debate about whether we get the 30-foot version that our daughter wants or the eight-foot version that will actually fit in our family room. They're always scrawny, Charlie Brown trees. Then we try to tie down the tree at home so it doesn't fall and kill anyone. We lay out a carrot for Rudolph and a glass of milk for Santa, and my husband gets quite elaborate sometimes and brings soot out of the fireplace to make footprints all over the floor. Our daughter is still wanting to believe, but we'll see at ages seven and eight how much longer that'll last. I'm just hoping she doesn't get mad at me, so don't publish this for four years, OK?"
For more heartwarming stories, see Readers share their magical holiday memories.
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