Do sailors have Christmas trees? A museum interpreter talks holiday traditions at sea

An upcoming talk at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic on Tuesday will be all about holiday traditions at sea — from Christmas trees and cards to New Year's celebrations.

Jason Climie, a museum heritage interpreter, will give the presentation. He provided CBC News with a sneak preview of what people can expect.

Maritime Holiday Traditions at Sea will be held at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic on Dec. 17 from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Admission is free and the museum will be collecting donations for Feed Nova Scotia.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What can people expect from the Maritime Holiday Traditions at Sea talk?

It's going to be kind of an overview of some of the various Christmas traditions that mariners have done both here in Nova Scotia and for vessels that come in and out of the harbour.

Hopefully, people are going to learn some surprising things about some traditions at sea, some Nova Scotian Christmas traditions that are relatively recent that I think people will find fascinating.

And more importantly, we're going to get to learn about what life is like for contemporary seafarers that come to Halifax, which I think, to be honest, are some of the most — I wouldn't say ignored — but I would say they're almost invisible here in Halifax. I think for most of us who live here, the harbour itself is something we all kind of take for granted. We see the ships come and go, but we really don't think that much about what life is like on these vessels.

What time period will you be covering?

We're looking from about the mid 1800s up to present day. We're going to be looking at letters from Grace Ladd. She was originally from Yarmouth, N.S. She was the wife of a sea captain and they were out to sea for close to 25 years. So one of the things that survived in the Yarmouth County collection are the letters she wrote to her father. So many of the letters actually talk about her experiences celebrating Christmas at sea with her family.

Did sailors have Christmas trees?

They did. It largely depends, particularly in the 19th century, how generous your captain would be. A lot of commercial vessels, most captains wanted to ensure that the ship and its crew were really focused on the day-to-day work on board, so a lot of them thought having any sort of Christmas celebration was just completely frivolous. But some of them did.

Most of those Christmas trees might have looked something like you would have seen sitting in front of Charlie Brown's house, but there were trees and they had them ... Christmas trees would be tied up somewhere on the superstructure on the mast.

Some of the crews ... would often do something a little special for Christmas dinner if the captain would allow them to do it.

What sort of things would be on the menu for Christmas dinner?

This is a menu dated 5th of December 1945, this is from HMT Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth was probably one of the most famous Cunard liners and she operated extensively as a troop ship during the Second World War.

On this occasion she was bringing Canadian soldiers back to Halifax and since they were out at sea, they got a Christmas dinner which included roast turkey with cranberry sauce, green peas, brown potatoes, cold ham, a lettuce salad, plum pudding, sweet sauce with ice cream, and they have a Christmas cake. Christmas cake is a very British thing, it's similar to a Christmas pudding but it has a thick layer of marzipan on it.

This doesn't seem too different than what is eaten at Christmas now

You're going to find that menus from the 1940s, particularly because the menu is designed for a bunch of soldiers, they're not going to have anything that's way out of the ordinary for these guys. They all want stuff they're accustomed to.

What about holiday traditions that are specific to sailors?

One of my favourites is actually still practised to this day in the Royal Canadian Navy. So on Christmas Day, the coxswain, one of the senior non-commissioned officers on the ship, goes and tracks down the youngest sailor on board and brings them to the captain, whereupon they switch uniforms so he gets to be captain for the day.

This goes all the way back to the 1940s when they were doing it on ships during the Second World War, and so not only does he get to do kind of a mock inspection, but more importantly for the crew — they get to watch the captain scrub the decks.

And you'll also be showing some Christmas cards, too

We have ones from Queen Elizabeth herself, the ship, not the sovereign. Normally cards like this would either get sent out before the ship sailed out or when it arrived in whatever port it was headed to. 

There are also two cards from HMS Hood. Hood at that time was one of the most famous war ships in the Royal Navy. In May of 1941, she was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck during the Battle of the Denmark Strait. 

What sort of Christmas traditions specifically from the East Coast will you be sharing?

One of them … is the relatively recent tradition of making Christmas trees with lobster traps. Barrington, N.S., was the very first community in Nova Scotia to do this in 2009, though the idea originally came from New England. It's a tradition that's kind of spread to coastal communities up and down the coastline, so places like Eastern Passage, Musquodoboit Harbour, Lunenburg and Sambro.

Some of the artifacts you'll be showing include two model schooners. Can you tell me a bit about those?

There's a large one and a small one. These were actually donated to the museum by a woman named Liz Campbell. These are part of a very long tradition, which I understand in the family went over 30 years. They were all around a very unique character her father created called Mr. Gursky.

Mr. Gursky came about because her father thought she and her sister were getting a little greedy when it came to their Christmas gifts, so one year they received a present from Mr. Gursky. I think the first year they got a turnip and the gifts got more ridiculous over time. So the models are actually some of the gifts that were sent to him. The larger one, Campbell made and was intending it to look like a shipwreck, but as she got further along with it, she realized it was looking too nice as it was. 

The green one that sits just in front of it, that came about because when her father eventually moved to Florida, it became such a hassle to send the big one back and forth that she made something that was a little more transportable.