Holidays 2024: Norgates cherish time together over Christmas

BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN

The holiday season is quiet for Jeff and Cindy Norgate of Blyth, but they really wouldn’t have it any other way. In their apartment in the village, they have a perfect view of snow-covered trees in the winter that makes them feel as though they’re a million miles away from their closest neighbour.

 

Jeff, who spent many years with CKNX in Wingham, and Cindy, who is now a teacher at Clinton’s Huron Christian School, have somewhat of a routine for Christmas, New Year’s and the time in between, but it mostly involves spending time together, just the two of them. However, it wasn’t always that way.

 

Jeff grew up in downtown Toronto, living there until he was a young adult, moving to Owen Sound to begin his career in radio. In his younger years, he remembers the omnipresent food and music of the holiday season. When he was a boy in Toronto, he said there were always special holiday treats on the table and music in the air.

 

His mother, born in England, was always busy in the kitchen and one particular treat he remembers from the holidays is trifle. He and his family would enjoy the uniquely British dessert only around the holidays, so he’s always associated it with Christmas.
Thinking back at memorable Christmas gifts, two of his life’s greatest passions could be traced back to gifts around the holidays. First, he remembers his mother getting a small transistor radio. The magic of that early radio play, of course, would pave the way for Jeff’s future career in radio - to the point that he still has a functioning transistor radio in their apartment, which he listens to at least once a day, taking in frequencies from Detroit, usually the local news, all the way to Blyth.

 

The other was his very first miniature train when he was about seven years old. It was a Lionel, he said, one of the most famous miniature train manufacturers in the world and it has led to something between an obsession and a hostile takeover of their apartment, which is now adorned with multiple trains and full town settings, many of which Jeff has built himself from scratch. It has continued to expand over the years and Jeff cherishes his beloved trains, which are so beautiful and unique and really shine when Christmas rolls around, with so many of the settings being perfect for the holidays. 

 

Cindy, on the other hand, grew up in rural Tennessee and only came to Canada in the late 2010s. In fact, the first white Christmas of her life was her first year here: 2017. However, growing up in the U.S., Cindy says it wasn’t all about Christmas down there like it is up here. 

 

Thanksgiving was the big get-together for her family and many of her neighbours, which then, much more so than in Canada, leads right into the Christmas season.

 

She grew up in a small farming community and her family did its best and the holidays were always special. When she was a little

girl, she still had many of her great-grandparents with her, so they always tried to get together whenever they could and Thanksgiving and Christmas were among those times.

 

She remembers getting up early, maybe 5:30 a.m. or so, and coming downstairs to see the tree all lit up, the cookies eaten and milk drunk and presents under the tree for her and her brother, left by Santa. She remembers gifts like dolls and stockings with an orange left for her. One year, when there wasn’t an orange in her stocking, Cindy asked her mother, who responded by saying that she had spoken with Santa, who said they weren’t available to him this year. Cindy remembers being blown away by the fact that her mother had some face time with the big guy.

 

As they grew into adults and had their own families, Jeff and Cindy both had children in their earlier families before they even knew the other one existed. 

 

One of Jeff’s sons was born on Dec. 23, so that Christmas was spent in the delivery room, but Jeff has since worked to make his birthday special every year in the hopes of not letting it get swirled up into the Christmas vortex every year.

 

With Cindy’s children, she said that, despite not having a ton of money to work with, she always wanted to make the holidays special for them, coming up with activities like making their own Christmas ornaments to get everyone into the spirit.

 

Now, together, all these years later, Jeff and Cindy have quiet, one-on-one holidays. They always try to take in a Christmas show sometime before the big day and they cherish the time between Christmas and New Year’s together as a time in which they can just lie back, relax and enjoy each other’s company without the trappings of work or responsibility.

 

They have a handful of Christmas movies they try to watch every year, like A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol, The Polar Express and others and really keep to themselves on Christmas Day. And although it’s just the two of them, they always prepare a full Christmas dinner to enjoy.
 

But it doesn’t end there. Cindy always makes a point to indulge in a particularly southern tradition on New Year’s Day, which is to make a meal of pork, black-eyed peas, greens and more - a meal that, through its symbolism, is meant to bring wealth and good fortune in the new year to those who eat it.

 

Both agree that the holidays just don’t feel right without snow. For Jeff and Cindy, it simply has to be a white Christmas, despite the fact that this is a new concept for Cindy. Cindy’s first white Christmas was in 2017, shortly after she moved to Canada, but now she sees it as being synonymous with Christmas and doesn’t know how she lived without it for all those years.