Lise's Ramblings

Celebrating the season with my family, immediate and extended, has always involved Christmas crackers. If you've never given Christmas crackers a try, I encourage you to pick some up (they'll be marked down this week) and experience what has charmed millions upon millions since the mid-1800s. Tissue-paper crowns, decades-old jokes and surprise gizmos. Everything tucked inside thin, rolled cardboard, which is wrapped in colourful foil or decorative paper, then tied to look like bon-bons. Some people prefer to go solo by ripping open a cracker with both hands. We always sought out a partner-in-crime seated next to us or across from us, then counted down from three before the cracker's contents spill onto the dinner table. For years, my aunt made our Christmas crackers. Our table settings looked festive and gorgeous, graced with handmade crackers with treats inside that were more special than store-bought ones. (Thank you for all that effort and c...

At bedtime, children implore parents and grandparents to read another story. Sure, stall tactics may be involved, but I like to believe that the desire to have someone read a tale aloud is at the heart of most pleadings. After all, some books can be appreciated the most when you hear the words roll off someone's tongue. Dr. Seuss stories come to mind.  Before ebooks, printed books or even scrolls, people relied on storytellers to entertain, enlighten, connect, and hand down oral histories and cultural experiences.  Aside from broader communities, reading aloud can also serve to strengthen bonds within families.  At our house, my hubby rarely sits still long enough to read. When he picks up something to read it tends to be a short piece from a newspaper’s business section, a hobbyist magazine or an instruction manual (yes, he's a rare breed). More often than not, his reading schedule coincides with bathroom breaks, because he optimizes every minute of his ...

The Brits have the Great Clock atop Elizabeth Tower , Westminster Palace , London . Although that clock’s four faces are affectionately known as Big Ben, that’s actually the Great Bell’s official name. Canadians have the Tower of Victory and Peace , which is more often called the Peace Tower , with its imposing gargoyles high above the Centre Block of Parliament Hill, Ottawa . Despite how large and bright today’s digital clocks shine, they pale compared to those classics. Digital clocks are easy to read, but more often than not, they’re too bright ( Times Square comes to mind). Then there’s the clamour of it all: alarms squawk, speak the hour or blare tunes at you. How I long for the mechanical metronome-like pendulum tick-tock-tick-tock ticking accompanied by chimes, cuckoos, gongs and tolls. They’re loud, yet somehow soothing. I grew up in households graced by those sounds, thanks to the two traditional timepieces shown here: the grandfather clock that towered in my grandpa...

 Image credit: The Globe and Mail  On Wednesday, I received a digital version of The Globe and Mail 's 1911 Christmas edition. Based on that edition, you wouldn't know that the world was undergoing technological, artistic, business and political change. The year 1911 marked: a shift in Canadian politics as Sir Robert Borden replaced Sir Wilfred Laurier;  the Mona Lisa's theft from the Louvre; the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in Westminister Abbey;  Mexican revolutions; a U.S. antitrust ruling against oil baron and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil prompts the company to divide into 34 companies and results in increased profits; Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant founding Chevrolet; Nobel Laureate Ernest Rutherford's major advances with atoms; the acquisition of Hollerith Tabulating Machine Company (its new parent company would eventually brand itself IBM); the death of Jo...

“Lest we forget” is a term connected with Remembrance Day, so we tend to think of people who gave the ultimate sacrifice: life itself. But beyond Red Fridays, November 11 th is also a time to honour all the men and women who serve their country in wartime, peacekeeping missions and emergency situations in Canada . For me, Remembrance Day always means thanking the heavens that my grandfather, Sgt. Harold C. Lampman (a.k.a. Dad Lampman), made it home to Canada from World War II. Dad and his war bride, Betty (Mom-Mom) Dad was a self-professed pacifist, family man and keen student, so going to war wasn’t something to which he aspired. When he was young, his love of music and interest in signaling were what he enjoyed in the cadet corps and the Oxford Rifles band. Atrocities overseas eventually drove Dad to sign up for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). As he put it, he and others were “forced by circumstances and people like Hitler and the Japanese Emperor to ...