Spacing editor Anna Bowness has said, a few times, that Sesame Street taught us everything we needed to know about urbanism when we were 3. It’s true, that street was the perfect idealized Jane Jacobs big city neighbourhood (especially warm and cozy for the 1978 Christmas Special). I realized yesterday, back here in the ancestral split-level house in suburban (nearly exurban) Windsor, that these Christmas displays my mom has been putting out for the last 20 years or so, that I secretly love, are little urban dioramas. They were one of the few instances of urbanity we had out here in the transitless boonies — maybe in some way planting some kind of urban seed long ago like Mr. Hooper’s store and Oscar the Grouch did.
The little city here is now so big it has spread to various corners around the living room. The scenes vary between Edwardian and Victorian England. Here we’re caught up in the bustle outside of Victoria Station. A well dressed gentleman carries some kind of bear under his arm, a lady stumbles around with a candle and look, it’s the Vicar and his young friend, hanging out.
The company that makes this stuff has a few different lines. Most here are from the “Christmas in the City” collection — but one year in the early 90s I mistakenly bought Fagin’s house for my mom as a gift, which is actually from the “Dickens Collection” so the timeline and universes of this world has to be taken with some suspension of disbelieve (it caused minor concern that first year, but I think we’ve gotten used to it now). Here the Vicar and his young friend are watching the butcher sell birds from his cart. The Vicar likes to show his young friends the town.
These blurry people are stumbling from the pub. Also at some point in the 90s Christmas went from dry to wet for us, which coincidentally had a correlation with how easy it became to spend 4-5-6 hours watching American Football games in relatives’ basements, so we cast no aspersions on these people and understand their need for a pint.
The chattering but loyal ladies of the British Empire are beginning to whisper about the Vicar and his young friend always showing up together, but at Christmas there’s too much to do in the city, and they’ll wait to let loose their allegations during the January doldrums.
For now, Merry Urban Christmas. I’ve yet to see Toronto on Christmas day or eve as we always return to Windsor. Until told otherwise, I’ll imagine it’s an updated version of these scenes. Is the subway festive on Christmas? Does the city seem empty or full of life?
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Empty, but in a festive sort of way. Knowledge that those who aren’t living it up in Chinatown or at Bathurst and Lawrence are tucked away in their various nuclearities is a warm, calm subtext to the emptiness.
It’s remarkably like this, but without the joy:
http://www.julieklausner.com/media/xmasjews-l.html
I remember seeing that video not too long ago. I love it!
Lovely post, Sean. Thank you.
The older I get the more I appreciate Sesame Street.
I must be getting sentimental.
I can’t speak for Toronto, but Christmas eve in Montreal’s Chinatown was rockin’. We scored the last table at a packed restaurant just in time for the, uh, entertainment — a belly dancer (!) and a magician. It was an evening of firsts: the first time I’ve heard a belly dancer introduced in Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, English and French by a swarthy man in a blue blazer, and the first time I’ve watched a bilingual French-English magic show with an audience of Chinese kids who exclaimed “Wahhhh!” everytime the magician waved his wand.
Then there was Christmas Day and the sad sight of little Hasidic Jewish kids being schlepped off to class in their schoolbus. Just another ordinary day, right?
We, too, have amassed quite a serious collection of Department 56 village pieces; my mom collects New England Village but for some reason my uncle keeps giving us Dickens Village.
I’m jealous about Victoria Station: I tried to find it this year at the local garden supercentre but came up empty-handed!
Kevin> Dep’t 56 retires pieces, so there is a collectors aspect to the whole thing. You’ll have to buy Vic Station when antiquing in the Kawarthas.
While my Mom doesn’t have any villages, the number of Christmas items at home has grown at a rate resembling urban sprawl!