Mabel Lewis, born Mabel McCormick in 1927, grew up in a time when Christmas arrived gently, shaped by routine and gratitude. Her memories do not glitter with excess, but they glow with steadiness, kindness, and the certainty that the season would return each year, just as it always had. “Oh, definitely,” she says when asked […]
Mabel Lewis, born Mabel McCormick in 1927, grew up in a time when Christmas arrived gently, shaped by routine and gratitude. Her memories do not glitter with excess, but they glow with steadiness, kindness, and the certainty that the season would return each year, just as it always had.
“Oh, definitely,” she says when asked if Christmas was celebrated every year. “I can never remember not.”
In Mabel’s childhood, Christmas came with rules that were never questioned. Once you went to bed on Christmas Eve, you stayed there.
“You went to bed, and you couldn’t get up again after you got in bed,” she says. “Because Santa Claus was coming. You weren’t allowed to see him.”
Christmas morning did not begin with presents, but with breakfast.
“We got up for breakfast,” Mabel recalls. “And of course, in those days, there was a lot of porridge. And I still love porridge when I can get it.” Porridge was comfort, not compromise.
Her childhood was spent in the countryside near Spanish, Ontario, surrounded by rock, creek water, and wide-open land. Their property offered freedom and adventure without needing much at all.
“We had a big creek,” she says. “Sometimes it got big when there was a lot of rain. We could play in there with our boats and everything.”
On one side of the property was a large rock formation that served as both boundary and pathway.
“If we didn’t want to walk on the road, we’d climb over the rock,” she explains. “When we came down the other side, we came into the schoolyard.”
The schoolhouse held all grades from one through eight, and high school meant taking the bus, a milestone that felt important. Education mattered, as did kindness and respect.
“I had good parents,” Mabel says. “I can’t ever remember getting a licking.”
She smiles and adds, “I must have been on Santa’s good list.”
Christmas gifts were simple but meaningful.
“Whatever you got, you were grateful for,” she says. “Because you knew what you had. We got one or two small things.”
That same simplicity carried into Christmas dinner. In the early years, the main meal was chicken.
“We didn’t have a lot at the beginning, but we always had chicken for our big meal on Christmas day,” Mabel says. “Then as times went by and work got better, then we went to turkey.”
Turkey represented progress, a quiet sign that life was improving. The rest of the meal stayed familiar.
“You did all the fixings,” she says. “Potatoes, gravy.”
When Mabel married Don Lewis, Christmas grew in size and energy. She married into the Lewis family, who celebrated the season in a much bigger way.
“When I married Don, then his parents were my family,” she says. “And they did Christmas bigger.”
The gatherings were fuller, louder, and stretched across more people and more food. Mabel welcomed it all.
“Oh, it was something,” she says. “We celebrated with them like I never had before.”
Mabel met Don when she was just 16 or 17 years old, while working at a tourist lodge along Ranger Lake Road. The area was busy with visitors, many of them American.
“They were always American,” she says with a laugh. “They always had more money than the Canadians.”
Don worked construction with his father, driving trucks and tractors, helping with road work and sometimes he would stop at the lodge where Mabel worked.
“That’s where I met him,” she says. “He saw me, and then he asked me if he could come back and see me. And that was it. Well actually, I would bring him coffee, and then that was it.”
Their life together was built on respect, something that was made very clear early on by Mabel’s father.
“When the boys were getting married, my dad said to them, ‘You respect your woman,’” Mabel recalls. “‘And if you ever lay a hand on her for no reason, you’ll be dealing with me.’”
Don took that to heart.
“He was an excellent husband,” she says. “Definitely never laid a hand on me. He was an excellent father too. I married a good guy.”
Together, they raised two children, Terry and Karon. Terry now lives in Fort McMurray and runs a construction business. Karon is married too. Mabel speaks with pride about her family and the life they built together.
Now approaching 99 years old, Mabel reflects on her life with calm certainty.
When asked about the secret to a long life, she replies humbly, “I’ve lived a good honest life, I didn’t try to harm anybody.”
Christmas, for Mabel Lewis, was never about extravagance. It was about routine, respect, and belonging. It was porridge on Christmas morning, chicken on the table, rules that protected the magic, and later, larger gatherings with the Lewis family that filled the house with warmth.
“You miss those days,” she says softly. “But I had a good time.”
In her memories, Christmas is not rushed or loud, but steady and sincere.
That is Christmas as it once was.
