Le Sapin

Tino Rossi (1907-1983) sings this old Christmas favourite, my aunt Fernande use to sign it every Christmas at the urging of the family. Tino Rossi was certainly a singer whose voice appealed to many in the 1930's to 1970's in Europe and French Canada. He is the only French artist to have sold more than 500 million records.

We have so many ever green forest in Canada, the Sapin is almost a national symbol of our forests. Too many stories also of the days when people use to have a live tree in the house and how Dad would buy a tree too big for the living room and then cut the wrong part in an effort to make it fit, not to mention the mess it made. Today the artificial tree dominates all pre-lighted, etc... not really the same since the natural tree had this smell that said Christmas. In our home we did not have a live tree, but an artificial one due to strong allergies. However we did have a live tree on our porch and I was responsible for buying it, bringing it home, then putting it in a metal container, usually an old washing basin full of water, the water would freeze in an hour or so and then I would put multicoloured lights on it. I really loved that job and was proud of being able to do that every year.

In Europe we went to the Christmas markets in the weeks prior to 25 December in Munich and in Bologna, so much fun and so beautiful. Wish we had similar traditions in Canada with European style Christmas markets.