Raymond Pierce
- Dec 11, 2021
- 3 min read

Raymond Pierce’s "MY DAD’S NEW CHRISTMAS DENTURES!"

Updated: May 25, 2023

It was Christmas Eve 1956, in Saint John NB, my dad, Jack Pierce, arrived early to attend midnight mass at St. Peter’s Redemptorist Catholic Church.

Before mass, as was his custom, my dad decided to light a few vigil lights for his special intentions.

He went to the white marble altar railing and knelt down in front of the vigil light stand located on the other side of the altar railing, beside the beautiful Christmas crib.

Dad put his money in the donation box and took a white, wax taper.

This he lit from a burning vigil light before he began to light the first of his own lights.

The white wax tapers burn slowly and evenly when held in the upright position, but when the wax taper is held in a downward position for too long, as Dad was doing, it burns erratically and can quickly become a large flame. When this happens it’s very difficult to blow the taper out.

So, this is what happened to my dad: his taper flared up into a huge flame. Dad tried to put it out by whipping the taper through the air with rapid movements of his right arm.

That didn’t work, so he began to blow on the growing flame to extinguish it. That didn’t work either. The flame just grew and grew! Panicked now, Dad blew harder, and harder, and harder!

Then…… Pop! Oh My Goodness! With that final effort to blow out the flame, Dad’s new set of dentures flew out of his mouth and landed in the straw of the nativity scene, right beside the Baby Jesus!

Dad dropped the flaming taper to the floor. Then, much to the amusement of those sitting in the front pews, he stomped on it with his slushy galoshes and put it out.

Of course he still had to retrieve his dentures. How was he going to get them back? They were too far away to reach, well not without climbing over the altar railing in front of a church full of people. How embarrassing would that be!

What to do? Several thoughts raced through his mind.

Should he leave them in the Christmas crib all through the midnight mass?

If he did, would the people who came up to pray at the crib at the end of mass see his dentures resting in the straw, smiling back at them?

How would he explain that to the parish priests and brothers?

Just then the sacristy bell rang signaling that the Priests, led by 50 altar boys, were beginning their procession into the sanctuary. The midnight mass was starting. Everyone stood up as the choir began singing “Oh, Come, Oh Come Emmanuel.” The church lights were dimmed.

Each altar boy, wearing a white surplice over a red cassock, carried a lit candle, and all the priests were wearing gold-coloured vestments. The procession moved slowly down the center aisle and around the church. It was a beautiful sight.

Knowing everybody’s attention would be on the procession, Dad reached over the altar railing and grabbed the crook from the nearest shepherd. Using the curved end of the crook he dragged his dentures to the bottom of the altar railing and reached between the pillars to scoop up his straw-covered dentures.

As he rushed down the side aisle to his regular pew at the back of the church, he wiped his dentures on his coat a few times to get as much of the straw off as possible before he popped them back into his mouth.