Talk Description to Me

Episode 29 - It's Christmas!

December 25, 2020 Christine Malec and JJ Hunt Season 1 Episode 29
Talk Description to Me
Episode 29 - It's Christmas!
Show Notes Transcript

In this special Christmas episode of Talk Description to Me, Christine and JJ don their masks, put on their parkas, and walk through Toronto's Yorkville neighbourhood on a cold winter's eve. Recording face-to-face for the first time in the series, they take in the lights and decorations of the upscale shopping district, and describe the visuals of this most unusual Christmas season.   

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JJ Hunt:

Talk description to Me, with Christine Malec and JJ Hunt. Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate and if you don't, it's Christmas Day. And JJ and I are recording an unusual episode in which we are on the street as you can hear from the ambient noise. And we are in one of the more showy districts of Toronto and JJ is going to do some description of the holiday decorations and the lights and the crowds such as they are in in pandemic holiday season. So JJ, do you want to start with sort of just where we are roughly geographically?

Christine Malec:

Yeah, we are in the Yorkville neighborhood in Toronto. So this is a downtown neighborhood. Currently a very posh neighborhood hasn't always been the case. Yorkville was actually a suburb of the city of York back in 18, I think it was the 1830s. 1860s it got annexed into the city of Toronto. And for a while it was the hippie beatnik spot. This is where Neil Young would play and Joni Mitchell would play and Margaret Atwood would read poetry. And then it became this kind of like poncey ritzy cafe and boutique neighborhood, and that's what it is right now. But they do a wonderful job of decorating here. It's usually bustling with Christmas activity. Not as much activity this year as some other years. But still they got some beautiful decorations up for Christmas. So nice place to be.

JJ Hunt:

Are you seeing, is it mostly commercial decorations or private stuff. So most of what's here there's a it's a very small street. It's a an on one side of the of this main street that we're on, which is Cumberland, on one side of the street are businesses and these are these would have been like gold New York brownstone style buildings, these Victorian row houses that have been converted bit by bit into retail spots. That's one side of the street and in their windows, some of those shops have have some decorations in them. And then on the other side of the street, where we're standing right now is a park and the park has been divided into very small sections. This was kind of done intentionally by the city to mirror this Victorian row house thing. So little bit of a park beside a little bit of a park beside a little bit of park, each one different. And this is the side of the street where the city has put up the city and probably the you know the the Business Association has put up some some lovely decorations. So that's the majority of what's going on here. And of course the lampposts are decorated all of that as well. I wonder about the way we've think about the holidays in a broader sense then, then maybe when you and I were young as sort of white Anglo Canadian people it was always Merry Christmas and the theme was about Christmas but I wonder what the decorations reflect. Is there a particular Christmas theme or is it about lights and pleasant things to look at and play? Yeah, it's a lot of it here is just twinkling lights, beautiful lights, doors, there are still some classic Christmasy things like the lampposts on this street are old looking lampposts antique vintage looking lampposts I'm sure they're not, but that's that's what they're made to look like. And on each black lamppost, there's a wreath hanging that is unlit, what's it's actually it's, it's a wreath that encircles the lamppost, so parallel to the ground. And so it's big bushy, you know, evergreen boughs, and some, it looks like red painted pine cones hanging off of them. And then over the light itself at the top, there is another wreath and this one is, so you can see right through it, too, and the light is right in the center of the...

Passerby:

The centre of the universe!

JJ Hunt:

That's right, the light is in the center of the universe, says the gentleman walking by. Merry Christmas.

Christine Malec:

Ha ha!

JJ Hunt:

So at the top of the lamppost, where the light is, there's a there is a second wreath that is encircling the light at the top, it's aglow. These are globe lights, and that there are kind of yellow golden lights wrapped around that wreath. And so those are on all the lampposts going up and down the street. That's kind of the most classical Christmas decoration that's here. Most everything else is lightshow, which we'll get to in a bit. Okay, can we do a little covert people watching so there's people staying in one place off to your right, my left and they're just kind of hanging out. So is that like a pandemic hang out, or do you think they would have been there anyway? Yeah, well, I mean, they look like a group of guys that might just be there anyway. But there's a lot of public hanging out right now. And so there are, you know, there's like three guys over there where they've got their BMX bikes, just sitting nearby. And, you know, they're just having a smoke and talk, young men. And then there's a little outdoor cafe area, it's actually not associated with any one cafe. It's just a bunch of tables and chairs that the city has out in that little section of park. And it's interlocking paving stones and nice stainless steel tables. And there are people sitting, hanging out, having a drink. Again, there's no bar that they're at this not that they're here because there's a coffee shop necessarily associated with it. They're just hanging out because the only way any of us can see each other right now is, is out in public. So there's no snow on the ground at the moment, but it's no warm. It's above zero. So in the normal course of events, people wouldn't necessarily be lingering outside, but that's definitely a feature of the pandemic world. That's right. And yesterday, we had lovely snow. Yesterday morning was gorgeous. I was really hoping that snow would stick around because it was the kind of snow, it was thick and heavy and sticky. And if we wanted to have a snowball fight it would have worked really really well. It was perfect. We could have had that classic Coke commercial snowball fight and got those guys that are hanging out having their smokes involved. And then the yuppies having coffee at the tables. All of us could have come together.

Christine Malec:

We could have been really popular.

JJ Hunt:

Delightful. So there's cars going by and you might hear the occasional deep rumble which is the subway going underground, below us. And so do you want to talk about the light? Yeah, let's walk over there and we'll talk about the lights. All right. So we'll just head around, we're going to make a circle here. Yes, so this park is split up into sections and in the summer this first area of lights is actually a fountain, it's a vertical fountain. So water drips down cables that kind of that stretch from a trough above down to a pool below. And right now those wires those cables where the water would drip down. They have been decorated with small blue lights string after string after string of blue light.

Christine Malec:

Oh, wow.

JJ Hunt:

there we go. So they're not really sparkling, they're not really twinkling, they're very small. And they're you know, this is probably 40 or 50 feet long. And I'm gonna guess 15 feet high. Yeah, there's long strings of blue light coming down so it ends up the the effect is that it's a curtain of blue lights on this side. And then there's a matching on the other side of the park. There's a similar structure, it's actually an archway, a square archway. And on that arch, again going up one side across the top and down the other are strings of gold lights hanging down again like a curtain. But in there there are also some twinkling white lights, and so they sparkle, they're sparkling all over the place. And those lights are actually reflected in some of the some of the windows in the office towers that are nearby. So these would be like the municipal government or somebody would have or maybe the Business Association? Exactly. These are put out by by the city. And normally it's an attraction, it's a place to come and do your Christmas shopping at small boutiquie places. You know, go to a sushi place nearby, or the there's an ice cream shop. That ice cream shop's open if you feel like an ice cream.

Christine Malec:

Ha!

JJ Hunt:

It's a little coold. And then you hang out. So this area of the park has some tables here as well. So there are a couple of different groups at tables. Compare this to what this would look like a year ago. Oh I it's it completely different in normal year. Last Christmas this would be packed. We wouldn't be able to stand here taking up sidewalk space like this without people kind of nudging us out of the way constantly. Busy busy.

Passerby:

Hey I'm outta work, just trying to get something to eat. Can you possibly spare a bit of change?

Christine Malec:

Hold on a sec, I've got something.

JJ Hunt:

You got something there?

Christine Malec:

Ya.

Passerby:

Please forgive me it's just been....

Christine Malec:

Oh that's alright.

JJ Hunt:

It is a tough year. Hard times for everybody my friend.

Passerby:

God bless you. You have a wonderful new year and Merry Christmas.

Christine Malec:

You too.

JJ Hunt:

You too, be well.

Christine Malec:

Cheers. Last year...?

JJ Hunt:

Ya. sigh So last year in a normal year, Yorkville as a shopping district is packed. Tons of people here to do their shopping, hanging out. It's also a social place as well, and it's right downtown. So this would be the kind of neighborhood where people would come, meet, do some shopping, grab a coffee. You might sit for a few minutes, but you're probably going to then go into a bar or something like that, and have a drink. And so right now in this part of the park, there are a handful of tables that are pulled together. There's a tree that's been decorated. It's a fake tree. It's been built. It's a fake white tree that is just encrusted with brilliantly white lights. The whole thing looks like it's crystal. And there are groups of young people hanging out. But all told, 20 people. And you can see three distinct groups, there's two groups having coffee at tables, and one group of young women, they are taking turns taking Instagram photos with that tree. And so one woman has just climbed up and she's sitting there and she's gonna do her Instagram shots. And then she gets down and someone else comes up. And none of the none of the stores are open.

Christine Malec:

Oh, oh, really?

JJ Hunt:

These days, so the way it works in Toronto right now, for those who aren't here, for independent stores you can do curbside pickup. So during the day, you can place your order, and they'll come and run out to the curb and hand it to you. But no one's doing that this evening. There are a couple... there's the ice cream shop. the sushi place is open for takeout only. Again, the ice cream takeout only. So there's not... Are you seeing anyone going in?

Christine Malec:

There are a couple people in the in the ice cream shop. They've got masks on and they're getting their ice cream. And then as soon as they've got cone in hand, they have to come outside and... Eat their ice cream in the cold. That is so Canadian.

JJ Hunt:

Heh heh. Isn't it though? At least it won't melt on ya. There's that, right?! Anyone in a Santa suit? Elf costume? Ha! No Santas this year, I'm probably the most Santa-looking guy here!...bare branches with lots of twigs. And hanging from these trees are very large lit balls. Ornaments, about a dozen per tree. And they are they're woven, they look kind of like balls of string, but not solid. So about the size of basketballs with red lights inside. So the red lights glow through these strings that look like they've been wrapped around and around and around. And again, a couple people hanging out......very small white lights, very classy. All of the decorations here are classy.

Christine Malec:

Oh!

JJ Hunt:

This is not the tacky Christmas that you see in some spots. These are classy decorations. Ha ha. Oh, thanks for making that distinction. Oh, yes.

Christine Malec:

I'm sure it's a subtlety that I'm not the only one who doesn't appreciate fully.

JJ Hunt:

Well I'm a big fan of the tacky Christmas decorations.

Christine Malec:

Of the tacky, really?

JJ Hunt:

Oh god yeah. Do you have a favorite in mind that you could describe even Oh goodness. So I'm some houses now.... I mean, you can decorate though we're no in front of it?

Christine Malec:

Can you imagine? in all kinds of ways. the new options are so varied, but you can still go back to the old school lights. So now most of

JJ Hunt:

I know! And if one goes the whole string goes. But they the lights are a little tiny LEDs. And a little tiny LEDs can do all kinds of things. You can get them to flicker and change color over time. Or they can look like drip. You can have p tterns in the in the strings o light where will where light w ll run down in one direction a d then run in the other d rection. All kinds of things. ut the old school Christmas ights are bulbs, proper bulbs, hat have to actually screw in. are beautiful, and colorful, and they give a warmth that the little LEDs don't give. The little LEDs are like stars, they're tiny and bright. But they're not, they tend not to be very warm. And the old bulbs are warm and lovely. So when I see a house that has old bulbs, big colorful bulbs... and sometimes these plastic decorations that have been around since the 40s or 50s! They've been selling old Christmas decorations, they've been around for a long time. And they have these plastic - hard plastic - painted plastic figures. You can get a Santa in the sleigh with all the reindeer, you get that set. Or you can have the kids around the fireplace, you could get that set. And they have lights inside them so they glow! And they're glorious plastic monstrosities, and I love them!

Christine Malec:

Heh heh heh.

JJ Hunt:

My other favorite - of course doing the nativity scene out in your front lawn, lots of people do that.

Christine Malec:

Is still done? Is that still a thing?

JJ Hunt:

It's still done, certainly in our neighborhood.

Christine Malec:

Yeah, yeah.

JJ Hunt:

And if you combine this like hard plastic 1950s decoration with the nativity scene, it's wonderful. So, one of the things with the nativity scene on the front lawn, or any nativity scene, for some people the tradition is that you set up the nativity scene, but you don't put the baby Jesus in until after midnight mass on the 24th. Have you heard of this?

Christine Malec:

I have not.

JJ Hunt:

Not everyone does this, of course, but some people do. But there are some people in our neighborhood that you know, they want to set the whole thing up but they've got to follow this rule of not having Jesus be part of the display until Christmas morning. So they set the whole thing up, and then they cover the baby Jesus and only reveal him on Christmas morning.

Christine Malec:

Wow!

JJ Hunt:

There's one house that's done this, they've taken an old bleach jug, and they cut the bleach jug in half, so that it can sit over the baby Jesus in the manger. And on Christmas Eve, Papa comes out of the house and he picks the bleach jug off of the baby Jesus and He is revealed to the world.

Christine Malec:

I love it! You know, I was raised Catholic and not till this moment, have I made the analogy between the baby Jesus being revealed on Christmas morning and the wrapped present?

JJ Hunt:

Of course! Oh my god, what kind of a symbolic thinker have I been all these years? Thank you, JJ. Oh, you know...

Christine Malec:

Jesus under the bleach jug.

JJ Hunt:

There's your next big Christmas hit!

Christine Malec:

Ha ha!

JJ Hunt:

...so we are at like the big Christmas tree, the actual Christmas tree here. A lot of neighborhoods or business associations or whatever will have a big Christmas tree. And this one's probably, oh, 40 feet tall. Lovely pine tree. Again. It's only decorated with white lights, nothing else. No other ornaments. The lights are almost all the tiny little LED white lights. There's a family taking pictures here. A woman taking picture of a man holding a baby. Baby's pointing to the camera now.

Christine Malec:

Tee hee.

JJ Hunt:

So this would be the kind of thing that, under normal circumstances, people would literally be lining up to take their picture with this tree.

Christine Malec:

Oh, oh oh.

JJ Hunt:

And it is just not the case right now....and you know, there are some neighborhoods that you can go to where houses have been decorated. There are some neighborhoods, there's one street in Toronto. It's a little bit far away from us. I don't now how it started, but they d cided they were going to be the street of giant Santa Clauses.

Christine Malec:

Oh!

JJ Hunt:

And so they all, house by house, went out to, whatever- Home Depot or Canadian Tire, and bought giant inflatable Santas. And there are now like 30 of them on this street. Does this make you happy? Is this the kind of tacky that you like? That's my kinda tacky! Outrageous and ridiculous! And the whole street's in on it. And there are some houses that do full on light displays and they bring in old and new and it's not... This neighborhood here, it's all very precise. It's very planned.

Christine Malec:

Right.

JJ Hunt:

And for some of these houses, it's just like "Hey, I got a string of lights. Let's slap it up here! We got an inflatable Santa? We'll put it here! We've got a you know we got a creche? Well let's put that up here too." And you know bit by bit...

Christine Malec:

We're missing a wise man but that's okay.

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, it's still good. Two Wise men's fine. That's wise enough.

Christine Malec:

Enough wisdom...about the other ways that you see people existing outside

JJ Hunt:

Exactly. trying to be together as the holidays. Do you see more fire? What things are you seei g? What's different just n general socially with COVID and Well, there's a lot of people who are outside, a lot of people on front porches, a lot of people in front yards, backyards, hanging out in parks. I mean, even in the winter now. You know, it's getting cold, there's snow sometimes. You go to some of the some of the bigger neighborhood parks, and uh, I'm just going to turn us around just so we can keep walking.

Christine Malec:

Ok, ok.

JJ Hunt:

Even now, if you go to some of the bigger neighborhood parks, you'll still see people hanging out and standing in

Christine Malec:

It's sort of lovely. circles and bouncing up and down with their hands stuffed in their pockets and sharing hot chocolate and hot cider. In he park with their thermose, because people are still just anting to get toget

JJ Hunt:

It is.

Christine Malec:

It sort of is. I hang around with people and we sing and I just think this is kind of beautiful. Like, I'm freezing! I go inside to have a hot bath, thank goodness. But yeah, there's something very sweet.

JJ Hunt:

I agree. You know, we've done the same thing at our house. We've got to stop here because there's another family taking pictures at the tree. Oh good. Yeah, the woman was trying to get her kid to make the make the okay sign, but the kid was not into it.

Christine Malec:

Heh heh.

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, you know the being outside, hanging out on your front lawn or front porches. It is kind of nice. You know people are, in some cases, they're decorating accordingly. Putting up decorations outside more than inside in some cases, because that's where you're going to be hanging out with friends. Or making sure that you don't put your patio furniture away for the season. Have you seen many heaters? Portable heating? Oh, yeah. In our friend circle everyone bought a different solution. So one friend bought a heating lamp that hangs from the umbrella of a patio set.

Christine Malec:

Oh I like that!

JJ Hunt:

That's really nice. So it's overhead and the heat comes down. That's lovely. Another, these guys were very smart. In August they bought this thing that hooks up to the barbecue propane tank. And it's a, it looks like a fire pit. And real proper flames come out. A real nice heat. And you know, just don't step on the hose that's running to the barbecue. And then we we were just over to another friend's place. I probably should be careful about this. But we were over at a friend's place the other day and he has a smoker that, you know, normally he's smoking a turkey or something. We just smoked ourselves. We just threw a bunch of coals in there, and we all stood around, warming ourselves by the smoker. You know, you got to do what you got to do. Yeah, it's no, it's the sea instinct for humans to be together. And even in the cold in the winter - more so in the cold and winter, Yeah.

Christine Malec:

we just need to be together.

JJ Hunt:

...so here's a store, the Kate Spade store, the Kate Spade, New York store. I honestly don't know what they sell. Purses? There you go. I'm gonna say purses. But the store windows are full of hanging balls, hanging ball ornaments. Glass balls, glass ornaments. Again, very, very dignified, classy. Lovely. Again, I'm a big fan of the old school store windows, the big department store windows where there are dioramas. And the kids toys are animated inside the store.

Christine Malec:

You'll shoot your eye out!

JJ Hunt:

Exactly. Those are the ones! And there are still some around. There are some downtown where they still do those kinds of display windows.

Christine Malec:

... to the park with a friend the other day, and we walked by the skating rink.

JJ Hunt:

Oh, yeah. Oh I choked up. The skating rink and those slashing hocking stick noises. Skate blades and little kids. It's limiting when you have to make appointments and la la la. But it was still the skating rink! That's right, you've got to book your slot at the skating rink.

Christine Malec:

You do, but still, there were people out on the ice.

JJ Hunt:

Yep. Oh, yeah. Yep, the shinny game isn't there. But you know, small groups.......yeah, the snow that was here yesterday, clinging to every branch of every tree, all of the street wires. Oh that must be really spectacular. It was thick. Really the kind of snow that covers everything, and doesn't want to let go.

Christine Malec:

Every fine little twig.

JJ Hunt:

Every twig is piled high.

Christine Malec:

The light fluffy stuff just blows away.

JJ Hunt:

That's right. But this stuff was thick, it was on everything. The street wires, the signs, every window sill, every car, every mailbox. Thick and wet. And then of course, as it starts to melt, it comes down in clumps.

Christine Malec:

Huh huh.

JJ Hunt:

You can just watch it like fall from the fall from the trees and hit with a splat...... we're passing by another store window here. So this one's got fake trees inside. And they're covered in fake snow and gold and red balls. And, the mannequins are dressed in winter wear.

Christine Malec:

Is fake snow convincing?

JJ Hunt:

No, no. Not at all. This is, I don't even know... I gotta get going to get close here. This fake snow, yeah, it kind of looks like moldy cauliflower.

Christine Malec:

Oh.

JJ Hunt:

Yeah. But there's a topiary, a fake topiary deer in there. There are a few condo towers in this neighborhood as well. And you can see in the windows of some of these condo units. And so you can see people's trees inside.

Christine Malec:

Oh sweet

JJ Hunt:

Ya. And, you know, some of them are, again, it's a fairly high end neighborhood. A lot of these condos are going to be small. Not a lot of families in these in these units. And a lot of the trees and decorations that are inside are one color lights on small trees. So trees with gold lights or, you know, tree with white lights. That's it. We were walking through our neighborhood the other day and it just seemed to be the day that everyone was getting their tree set up.

Christine Malec:

Oh!

JJ Hunt:

And it was lovely to go by house after house and seeing people standing on chairs inside their houses. You know, putting the decorations high on the tree. It was really quite nice. We did we did a little bit of lingering, I have to admit. What's the funniest thing you've ever seen on top of a Christmas tree? Oh, we have a sock monkey on the top of our Christmas tree.

Christine Malec:

Oh! I should have just asked you, then.

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, we've got a - let's cross the street here. I'm trying to think, what else have I seen? Lots of stars, lots of angels. Of course a lot of the time the topper is one of the oldest decorations on your tree. Right? It's often the decoration that's been passed down. So they're often quite rickety, falling apart or ancient. But we have a tree full of homemade decorations, so we thought a red sock monkey. That would be the king of a tree laden with homemade decorations.

Christine Malec:

You one on that one, you've got the tackiest.

JJ Hunt:

Yeah, we got tacky. We're all about the tacky, Chris. We are all about the tacky. Good. At least there's no family squabbling over that. No, if there's any squabbling it's over who can be tacky-