APRIL 1977 FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS SPRING The systematic work ...

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S14 ELM ST.,TORONTO
NEWS AND VIEWS OF CLUB PROGRAMMES AND ACTIVITIES
DECEMBER, 1977
CHRISTMAS AT 14 ELM
The Arts and Letters Club has long had a
talent for keeping a good Christmas ... a
talent dating back to early Court House days.
The dates of Dec.7, Dec.14, and Dec.23 were
ringed on the 1977 Calendar for the clubts
festive events, in a sequence proceeding from
the traditional to the informal.
The Boar's Head Dinner (which had somehow
wandered into the middle of Hanukah) was the
5 5season's bellwether. That event has so
dependable a chemistry of its own -- as eager
ticket-seekers know -- that it turned the
evening into much more than a reminder that
Christmas was 2 weeks away.
The right blend requires both the familiar and
the special. Phrases suffice to recall the
familiar -- the tabards worn; the extended
social hour with its opportunity to greet outof-towners
and the less frequent; the procession
with its candle-bearers, jester and all; the
mounting and surrounding sounds --- "Non Nobis
Domine"; the toast to Her Majesty (whose Royal
predecessor Henry VIII is credited with starting
the Boar's Head tradition); President Pat Hume's
introduction of the noteworthy; the essay-like
extended remarks of our St.George's landlord.
For carols we had an offering more reverent and
ambitious than the sing-along variety, thanks
to the talents of Reg Godden at the piano and
the work of our re-organizing choir under the
direction of John Cozens.