Candace Shaw

The first decade of this century has been filled with challenges – some of my own creation, others external – and the last couple of years have been really focused on figuring out what I’m doing wrong and how to correct it.  But that’s not to say that the decade that saw myself and my friends complete and debut a feature-length film, complete my B.A. at Trent,  start and run the MoHo Music Revue, explore my arts admin side via the Peterborough Arts Umbrella, and also working up through the ranks at the Peterborough Folk Festival to become Artistic/Executive Director hasn’t seen any triumphs; I’ve worked hard, had loads of luck, and succeeded in areas I never would have dreamt of prior to 2000.  If the 90s for me were all about theatre, the aughts were mostly about music, including in these last couple of years finding my voice as a singer and learning to play ukulele (both very much works in progress as we step into the next decade).

Until recently, I’ve never been one for making resolutions, but I like a fresh start as much as the next person, and I’ve found that, as Emerson says, the world makes a path for the man who knows where he is going. So here are my goals for 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been learning ukulele for a few months now; when my good friend David gave a uke workshop at the festival this summer, and I was lucky enough to have the time to sit in.  Since then, both he and Lesley have lent us a pair of ukuleles, and when I finally picked it up again later this Fall, I found that, as promised, the uke is completely addictive.  After years of failed attempts at learning guitar and a slightly more successful go at the banjo (until my teacher, Lotus, moved away to become an old-timey superstar with his partner-in-crime, Sheesham), it was like a revelation to pick up the uke and be playing songs within half an hour.

So that was mid-October, and now I know one Christmas song all the way through, so I thought I’d share it with you.  I recorded it last night at about 2am, just as I was getting ready for bed after finishing up last-minute Ecksmassiness, and it took me about seven takes to get the lyrics right.

Anyway, enjoy, and I hope your morning has been as lovely as mine!

Ah Christmas; it’s easy to be snarky or soppy about it, and you don’t see much else.  I like Christmas, generally speaking, though I’m not religious.  There are plenty of things about it that trouble me, and I get the reasons behind what some people call ‘political correctness’ – which I consider to just be ‘correct’.  You can’t assume that everyone is celebrating the same thing; it’d be like assuming that everyone loves bubblegum icecream, which is clearly an insane assumption.  I don’t mind people saying ‘Merry Christmas’ to me; but then, I also don’t mind someone saying ‘Happy Hanukkah’ or ‘Happy Solstice.’  I like a lot of religions; if they could get rid of a few deeply troubling ideologies, I’d happily belong to lots of them.  In particular I think any celebration that involves homemade Latkas and gifts of socks (by far one the best gifts you can give anyone, especially in Canada) should pretty much count me in.

I had a number of very bad, stressful Christmases a few years ago; school, money, relationships, friends,  family issues, everything kind-of just piled on while I was in university, and I couldn’t seem to work my way out from under it to recapture the loveliness, the excitement, the sparkle that I used to always be able to access despite the inevitable garbage.  I was certainly snarky at Christmas’ expense during those years; I felt like it was a season that ought to be awesome, but whose loveliness was ruined by passive-aggressive guilt, personal tragedy, greed and people-related misery.  I’d consider moving to another country to avoid it all, or getting drunk around mid-December and staying well-and-truly blitzed until January 5 or so.  These options seemed pretty reasonable.

Slowly I’ve worked my way back to liking the season, though it took a long time.  I’m almost prepared to be the kind of person who says ‘I love Christmas!’
Perhaps without the exclamation point.
But the way I did it was by taking it back, and creating my own traditions that became somewhat inviolable; ‘tradition’ is a word that gives other people pause.  It’s harder when you’re a single person with no kids of your own, but even so, tradition is a buffer between me and the desires of other people.

Many years ago, a friend started calling it ‘Ecksmas’ – something I latched onto quickly as the appropriate name for my holiday, the kind of secular greenery-gifts-food-friends-family holiday that many people of my generation celebrate.  ‘Ecksmas’ is great – everyone knows what you’re talking about, and which traditions you’re probably into.  It implies nothing about your beliefs or your religion, though it usually speaks to the tradition you descend from. It gives a lot of information in one tidy little word.  And for me, Ecksmas is tremendously personal. Read the rest of this entry »