When Keith Heron talks about Christmas, his memories begin outdoors, in deep snow, with cold hands and the smell of fresh-cut wood. “It was a big deal for my parents,” Keith says. “A big deal.” Keith was born on May 22, 1940, and grew up in Nova Scotia before moving to Sarnia in 1957 for […]
When Keith Heron talks about Christmas, his memories begin outdoors, in deep snow, with cold hands and the smell of fresh-cut wood.
“It was a big deal for my parents,” Keith says. “A big deal.”
Keith was born on May 22, 1940, and grew up in Nova Scotia before moving to Sarnia in 1957 for work. Christmas, he says, was never casual in his household. It required effort.
“We had to go get a tree,” he says. “And it had to be perfect.”
There were no tree lots. No quick stops. The family went into the woods themselves, often through snow piled high.
“My dad worked in the coal mines,” Keith explains. “So when he wanted a tree, he wanted the right one.”
Keith remembers snow so deep it slowed everything down.
“We travelled through snow that high,” he says, holding his hand up to his waist. “And my dad would climb right up to the top of a hill to find the good tree.”
Once they found it, his father climbed again.
“He’d climb up the tree and cut it down,” Keith says. “That’s how we got our Christmas tree.”
One Christmas, the trip brought home more than just a tree.
“We found this kitten,” Keith says. “So we took the kitten home.”
The kitten became part of the family. Years later, when Keith moved to Sarnia, the cat disappeared.
“I came back home for Thanksgiving,” he says. “And the cat came back.”
Keith still sounds amazed.
“What were the chances?” he says. “He knew.”
Christmas dinner followed a familiar pattern.
“Turkey,” Keith says. “With the fixings.”
He remembers it as better back then.
“It was better than now,” he says. “And cheaper.”
As a child, Keith knew exactly what he wanted for Christmas.
“Trains,” he says. “The whole train set.”
And he got it.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “I had good parents.”
But some of Keith’s most vivid Christmas memories have nothing to do with gifts. They come from time spent outdoors, making something with his hands.
“When I was four,” he says, “we used to make whistles.”
They were carved from branches, peeled carefully to make them sing.
“Whistles from trees,” Keith explains. “You peel the bark, and they whistle.”
One Christmas, those whistles became part of a moment Keith has never forgotten.
“A neighbour kid got a hatchet for Christmas,” he says. “He was 12. I was four.”
They were working together, holding the wood steady.
“He got me to hold it on the block,” Keith says.
The memory sharpens.
“And he cut my fingers off,” Keith says plainly. “Two of them, clean right off.”
Blood, panic, rushing to the hospital.
“I was four,” he says. “My mother was crying.”
The fingers were not stitched back on.
“Today, they’d put them all back properly,” Keith says. “Back then, they crossed them and bandaged them.”
The memory has stayed with him for more than seven decades.
“I never forgot that,” he says.
Keith moved to Sarnia as a young man, working for Bell Canada and later training as an electrician on the job. Life was hard work, often physical.
“Twelve hours a day,” he says. “Every day.”
But Christmas remained steady. When Keith became a parent, he made sure his children were cared for, without excess.
“They got what they wanted,” he says. “But they weren’t spoiled.”
He sees how much the season has changed.
“Today, everything’s money,” Keith says. “Electronics. That’s what kids want.”
Still, Christmas meant gathering, food, and familiarity.
“Turkey,” he says again. “Always turkey.”
Keith’s life has included serious illness, hard labour, and close calls, including a cancer diagnosis doctors once said he would not survive.
“They gave me three months,” he says.
He smiles.
“I’m still here.”
Looking back, Keith’s Christmas memories are not polished or sentimental. They are real. Cold hands. Snowy woods. A perfect tree. Whistles carved from bark. A lesson learned early and never forgotten.
For Keith Heron, Christmas was something you worked for, shared, and remembered, year after year, long after the snow melted and the tree came down.
