A Merry Christmas

Christmas used to be a busy time for me here in London. I worked and volunteered at the London Coffee House at its old location on William Street. Each year I carried the artificial tree up from the basement, set it in a corner of the main room, and decorated it with one of the ladies helping.

It was all the more festive when it snowed while we decorated. The front corner where the tree sat was next to a big picture window and you could see the snowflakes falling against the light of the streetlights. Normally there would be Christmas music playing on the stereo.

Everyone in the crowded room seemed to be in a good mood, in the spirit of the season. We finished the tree in one evening while our director, Carol, solicited volunteers to put up decorations around the building. In a matter of a few hours the Coffee House was all decked out for the season.

My decorating did not end there. For a couple of years, I used to put up the trees in both of LIFT Housing’s apartment buildings. I asked for volunteers among the tenants to help me and a few would come out. We would have snacks and music while we worked.

At LIFT House, the other apartment building owned by LIFT, where I lived, I would buy fruit, and cookies and pop, and candy and serve coffee in the common room on the afternoon of Christmas Eve for any tenants who wanted to stop in. The Christmas Eve social lasted all afternoon. There was a lot of small talk and laughter and normally everyone was in the Christmas spirit.

Every year, Elizabeth Sexton, the founder of the London Coffee House, would serve food and beverages at the coffee house on Christmas Day. I noticed she often worked alone so one year, I showed up to volunteer and help her out. This became a regular Christmas Day event.

I shovelled the walkways and brewed the coffee and helped lay out the food for a buffet type service. She would not accept my service as a volunteer, though, and insisted that the Coffee House pay me for the day.

Throughout the day I took boxes of chocolates around to everyone. Carol, leading up to Christmas, would buy small gifts for the folks who showed up Christmas Day. Things like socks and gloves and hats and toiletries. She would take the time to wrap them and label them for a man or a woman.

At some point during the afternoon Christmas Day, I had the pleasure of going round and giving each client there a present. Carol and her daughter would also stop in to visit with the folks.

At the end of the day, it was just Elizabeth and I. I would mop the floors, wash out the coffee urns, and then join Elizabeth in the kitchen to dry cups while she washed. It also gave us a chance to catch up as we normally did not see each other during the year.

Christmas Day duties and festivities done, Elizabeth and I wished each other a Merry Christmas and said good-bye for another year. I would walk home in the snow and spend the evening alone and a little drowsy from a busy day.

I spent Christmas this way for more years than I can recall, although I am sure, if I put my mind to it, I could figure out how many years.

Now I am retired and stay home for the holidays. I did my part, I think. There isn’t any family close by to celebrate the season with so I am content to talk on the phone and keep to myself. But for years, my ‘Christmas family’ were the poor and homeless of the Coffee House. I always looked forward to the season and never thought of it as work. It was always a Merry Christmas.