On the northwest coast of British Columbia, tucked just beneath Alaska, the Japanese current running down the coastline meant the winters seldom became deep and cold.

The local lakes seldom freeze over and when they do, the denizens of Prince Rupert -- population 10,000, most of whom are not skilled at skating -- careen wildly in circles fortified by hot buttered rums in steaming pots at lakeside.

Winter days that far north are short and dark, and usually characterized by heavy winds and stinging, driving rain. When it does snow it normally melts quickly into a dirty brown slush of rocks and sand ideal for making snowballs lethal to attackers from the enemy fort across the schoolyard.

I was 10 in the winter of 1948 when the snow that year came down heavy with moisture that set roofs creaking and left the community looking like every building was constructed of shiny white cement.

The sounds of that winter were of windshield wipers struggling to heave the weight of snow off the car windows, and of the musical cadence of rattling chains car tires needed to get up and down the hills of a town built on a mountainside.

For reasons unknown to me, although I usually lived in the homes of strangers dependent on monthly cheques sent by my absent father, that Christmas Eve I was with a new family I did not know.

I woke up early Christmas morning and padded into what served as a living room in that dingy apartment just above the pool hall known as "the Dungeon."

There under the tree was a shiny red bicycle, which, as quietly as I could to avoid waking anyone, I unwrapped, carried down a long flight of stairs and out onto the street, where I knew the bicycle's balloon tires could handle the deep snow.

However, the clanking and banging had woken up the residents, whoever they were, and a man came tearing out of the door shouting that I should give the bike back. It was for another boy, I presume his own, who lived in the apartment. If there was anything for me under the tree that year, I can't recall what it was. I can only recall the stinging humiliation of that moment.

Christmas that year, however, was saved for me of all people by the Salvation Army, whose Sunday school down in the grittiest part of a tough city I attended every Sunday.

Captain Spring, the army's finest and a local minister, had asked me to be the master of ceremonies at the Christmas Day concert. And so I found myself at centre stage wearing a sweater with silver buttons on the shoulder, and more than a little nervous as the curtains parted looking out on the assembled crowd, many of them down-and-outers waiting for the free meal they would earn if they could sit out the concert.

As if it was yesterday, I remember my opening lines and I remember them every Christmas: ‘O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.'

At that point, cue the choir, but instead there was a confused muddle of voices, as Captain Spring tried to pull them together amidst the laughter of the audience.

What I felt this time was not embarrassment. It was a sense of connectedness, of completion. For whatever reason, I felt comfortable at centre stage relating a story -- and what a story -- to others, which gave me an unexpected flush of pleasure, and of self esteem.

If only every parent could instill a sense of self worth in every child, we would have not just happy Christmases, but happy lives.