Holiday Traditions Are Good For Business

Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," whines Jo March in the opening paragraphs of the children's classic, Little Women. While most of us feel much the same way, it's more than just a heap of gifts under the tree that makes the holiday special-it's tradition, pure and simple.

Once upon a time, not so awfully long ago, a traditional Christmas meant hours of hands-on preparation, with customs passed from generation to generation. Most of us have at least one or two time-honoured rituals, whether it's taking the entire clan to choose the perfect tree, serving a favourite food, or decorating the house with festive plants and trimmings.

The poinsettia (euphorbia pulcherrima) is among the most traditional symbols of the Christmas season. During the 17th century, Franciscan priests began to use the poinsettia, because of its brilliant colour and holiday blooming time, in the Fiesta of Santa Pesebre, a nativity procession.

In 1825, statesman and amateur botanist, Joel R. Poinsett, US Ambassador to Mexico, spotted the colourful plant growing profusely on the country's arid hillsides, fell in love with its vibrant beauty, and sent some to his home in Greenville, South Carolina. Still, it was nearly a century before poinsettias gained popularity as a worldwide holiday plant. We have been passionate about poinsettias ever since.

To meet the holiday season's demand, Avon Valley greenhouses in Falmouth, NS, become a sea of red in the weeks before Christmas. The company cultivates close to 300,000 poinsettias in every size pot imaginable. Growing poinsettias is almost a year-round chore. Propagation begins in early spring, transplanting in July, August and September, and in mid-November until Christmas, employees pack and ship the finest blooms to their retail markets.

Avon Valley has more than 30 acres of greenhouses-located in Falmouth, Oxford, and Woodville, NS, and in Sussex, NB-ranking it one of the six or seven largest floral greenhouses in the country. For Avon Valley that means supplying retailers from Quebec to Newfoundland and down into New England with a most enduring holiday favourite.

"Poinsettias are the most popular plant in North America," explains Mac Isnor, chairman of Avon Valley Floral Group. "It's the single biggest selling plant-ahead of all those available 52 weeks of the year."

Red is the all-time favourite colour for poinsettia purchasers-no surprise there-but there are subtle shadings and differences, amounting to at least a dozen diverse reds. Coloured poinsettias, meanwhile, can range from palest pink to peach, gold, and champagne. These hues find favour earlier in the season as backdrops for parties and banquets, and are often chosen, a la Martha Stewart, to compliment one's decor. "Most style and colour trends start in California and work their way east and north. Usually, a year or two later those trends find favour in this area," says Isnor.

Avon Valley chooses varieties that are best suited for their markets, which means the plants must ship well and stand up under retail store conditions such as artificial light. Marketing experts are at work long before our decorations are packed away, choosing the colours and varieties Avon Valley will nurture the following season.

The ritual of the Christmas tree goes back much farther. Ancient peoples hung fragrant boughs of evergreen over doors and windows. Late in the Middle Ages, Scandinavians and Germans placed evergreen trees inside their homes or just outside their doors to symbolize their hope for the approaching spring. In many countries, folks believed evergreens would keep away evil spirits, witches and the like.

Our modern Christmas tree evolved from these early customs, but it wasn't until the 16th century that fir trees were brought indoors at Christmas time. In Atlantic Canada the first recorded Christmas tree appeared in Halifax in 1846, when William Pryor, a local merchant, cut down an evergreen and decorated it with glass ornaments imported from Germany, to please his German wife.

Keeping those traditions alive at Silver Bell Christmas Tree Farm in Springvale, PEI, is important to  Jim Murphy, who is also filling a small but significant Island niche-fresh trees and wreaths produced right on PEI.

Murphy has been retailing Christmas trees and wreaths since 1983. "We're on the go planting and pruning from about the last week in April right through until we finish retailing for the season, usually about the fifteenth of December," he explains. In October, during the Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off, visitors to Silver Bell get a little Christmas preview, when they can clamber onto a wagon and tour the tree farm. "At Christmas time, we offer hot chocolate and candy canes to the children. We really enjoy meeting the people."

Many families make a tradition of visiting the farm with their entire family in tow. "They come with their cameras and 15 to 20 relatives and make a day of it. It's a lot of fun for us and for the people that come out." For young and old alike, it's a festive start to the holidays.    

To those of us who appreciate the sweeter things in life, the name Ganong Bros. Limited, Canada's oldest candymaker, is synonymous with fine chocolate and candy-not a surprising distinction for a company whose address is One Chocolate Drive and which, this past August, sponsored its 18th annual "Chocolate Festival."

In 1873, brothers James and Gilbert Ganong set up shop in St. Stephen, NB, and struggled mightily for a share of the town's grocery trade. To entice customers, the Ganongs soon added a small confectionery, stocking fruit, nuts and, of course, candy.

The rest, as they say, is history. Ganong is credited with such important inventions as the five-cent chocolate bar, the all-day sucker, the perennially popular heart-shaped box of chocolates (intended at first for the Christmas trade), and those satiny pink sweetmeats with hearts of bitter chocolate so beloved by Atlantic Canadians-"chicken bones."

In 1885, Frank Sparhawk, a hard candy specialist recruited from Baltimore by the Ganongs, created this timeless cinnamon and chocolate treat. "Chicken bones are unique, really," says Bryana Ganong, brand development manager and daughter of president David Ganong, "they have a very intense and interesting flavour. It's not unusual to get orders for chicken bones from all over North America," she explains, "simply because 'Grandmother always had them at Christmas.' I think they've stayed popular for as long as we've been making them, because they've been incorporated in people's family traditions, and it becomes something that they want year after year." It seems the sweet's popularity has not waned in 117 years-Ganong now produces 300 kilograms per day, shipped primarily to devoted and tradition-loving Atlantic Canada.

At Lavinia's Olde English Delights Limited, in Lockhartville, near Hantsport, NS, goodies such as boiled Christmas pudding are still done the old-fashioned way, using techniques handed down from Lavinia Parsons-Atwell, who brought her culinary talents and heirloom recipes to Nova Scotia from Newfoundland. "At Grammie's the pudding was actually made on Christmas Day…the whole day centered around the pudding," remembers Lavinia Parrish-Zwicker, owner and founder of the business. "The house smelled of it all day, and the anticipation constantly escalated as you got closer to Christmas dinner. It didn't matter how full you were, you had to have Christmas pudding. Then you could have pudding at bedtime, and you could have it for breakfast the next day."

As often happens, Lavinia's Olde English Delights found its beginnings in serving family and friends the culinary delights that Parrish-Zwicker learned at her grandmother's knee. Then she showcased her products at trade shows. Now, 20 years later, with a year-round staff of two and a seasonal production team of four more, Parrish-Zwicker ships her puddings, fruitcakes, sauces and jams all over North America and overseas. Her products have graced the tables of celebrities and are even sought by triatheletes as a conveniently portable energy source.

Lavinia's Olde English Delights prepares a whopping 4,000 pounds of boiled pudding yearly, along with 2,000 pounds each of white and dark fruitcake. That's quite a task, considering the fruitcakes are hand mixed in 22-pound batches, while the boiled Christmas pudding is stirred in 25-pound lots. There are a few trade secrets the chef is willing to share: Parrish-Zwicker uses a specially blended, high-quality fruit for the cakes and puddings she produces. She eschews peel, "It makes fruitcake bitter," and currents, "I don't like them."  Aging improves the flavour of both fruitcakes and puddings, and so these are made well ahead and stored at 38-40 ?F(4-5 C). "Our dark fruit cake is baked in hardwood boxes-a tip passed along by an English baker," Parrish-Zwicker explains, "and it's flavoured with coffee and dark rum." Lavinia and her husband Peter personally choose the cakes, puddings and produce  each order. This combination of quality, care and tradition shapes a product Parrish-Zwicker is, quite rightly, proud of.     

Ganong Bros. Limited
www.ganong.com
1-888-270-8222(customer inquiries only)

Lavinia's Olde English Delights
www.lavinias.com
1-800-542-9972

Silver Bell Christmas Tree Farm
www.peisland.com/silver/bell.htm
(902) 892-6611