Remembrance Day Myth

Halloween has come and gone and with it went my diet and craving for chocolate. I think I might have set a new record for most tiny Aero bars eaten in the time it took to hand out candy to the trick or treaters visiting the house.

No sooner does All Hallows' Eve pass and the annual controversy surrounding Remembrance Day and Christmas resurfaces with a passion and anger no other holiday can achieve.

I'm not sure what fueled this debate but I can guess that the world of retail sales likely had a lot to do with it.

How dare these stores start pumping Christmas carols out of their speakers before November 11th and the day we honour our veterans of past conflicts and wars. Why is this even controversial?

Is there some rule or bylaw that states celebrating the holiday season can't begin until we've officially recognized the sacrifices made by our brave men and women in uniform? Am I disrespecting their memory by listening to Jingle Bells on November 8th?

I consider myself lucky to have spent my entire life living in a military city. I have known many people who have served in dangerous places as peace keepers and in areas of brutal conflict. My uncle served in World War 2 and I knew a couple of men who landed on Juno Beach in Normandy on D-Day and survived. One man hit the beach and had friends on either side of him shot and killed as they moved forward.

These men I knew have since passed away but I asked one of them several years ago about this very subject. While he didn't like to talk about the war too much, he did feel strongly that he fought to preserve our freedom and way of life. Freedom means being able to celebrate whatever you want whenever you want and he had no issue or complaint with people celebrating Christmas prior to Remembrance Day.

He only asked that for that minute at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month you think about the sacrifices he and his fellow soldiers gave so that we may live as we do today.

I don't think that's too much to ask which is why I always try to attend the service at the cenotaph on November 11th or at the very least stop and silently remember them. I know for a fact that if I'm listening to Christmas music on the way to the service he'd be completely fine with that and that's good enough for me.