December arrives, and the Huggetts begin their Christmas tour arranged by Hart Murdock Management and Jeunesse Musicales. The first date is in Fredricton, but on leaving day, when the family wakes to catch an early flight, they are snowed in at the top of the steep hill on which their new home sits. Their new neighbor, farmer George Johnson, graciously comes to the rescue and plows them out. 

 

Margaret: "Having just made our flight, we land and play our first show in Fredericton, which we've never visited before. We find it a very welcoming town. Then we move on to Woodstock. The venue is a large wooden Heritage building with beautiful acoustics. The CBC uses it for live summer broadcasts, but it's December, it's cold, and there are drops of rain seeping through here and there. However, we ignore the cold and deliver a heartfelt Christmas show, noting that the audience has kept their coats on!

 

From Woodstock, it's only a short drive to St. Andrews, a stone's throw from the American Border. Throughout our travels, we have played in so many border towns. The following day we are up betimes, as renaissance diarist Samual Pepys would say, and drive to Saint John to take the ferry across the Bay of Fundy to Digby, Nova Scotia. The tides in this area are the strongest in the world, which is an extraordinary thought. Once across, we continue driving until, after dark, we finally reach Acadia University in Wolfville.

 

The next day it's on to Dalhousie University in Halifax, where we are met by Janet Covington, a girl who was in my Carl Orff music class, along with Andrew, almost 20 years ago. She is now a cellist in the CBC Atlantic Symphony Orchestra. This town is home to several viol players, who turn out en-mass, making for a particularly empathetic audience. We fly to Montreal and, from there, drive to Lennoxvile for a return concert at Bishop's University.

 

From here, it's into Ontario: St. Lawrence College in Cornwall, the University of Waterloo, Barrie Collegiate (home to the famous and prize-winning band of the same name), Blythe, Sarnia, and finally, London, where they perform in the Saint Peter's Basilica. After playing William Byrd's The Leaves Be Green, a voice rings out from the audience, "Fantastic!" Such overt responses are unusual at an early music concert!

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On this tour, there is a moment in every concert where we all sit silently with our eyes fixed on Andrew while he plays Dowland's famous Fantasia for Lute. We feel at one with the audience, whom we only see dimly over the footlights. We all breathe with him as he reaches the end of the slow introduction before the lively galliard and sprint to the end, willing him to get the tempo just right, which he always does, of course."

 

Our last performance is in Oshawa, on December 8th, which is particularly remembered because it was the day John Lennon was tragically shot. Following the concert, we drive home to the "A" House, which again needs to be plowed out before we can get back in.