This Christmas

My brother Kevin is spending Christmas with us this year.  It'll be the first Christmas I've  had with him since 1998, so I'm really thankful he was able to make the long trek out here for it.  It will also be the first Christmas that Nate will have with him.  It should go without saying that Nate has been pretty much stuck to his side since he arrived.  Best Christmas present ever!

Quiet time

Snowing out, sounds of plows on the roads.  The walk home from the bus was straight out of a Christmas card.  Made this egg nog. Waiting for the laundry.  Christmas in a new city.  Thinking of old friends and acquaintances; I wonder where they are now and what they're doing, and if they remember me at all.  Ave Maria on the radio.  I want to call people, but don't know if I will have the words.  Another year almost over.

Holiday baking

We spent the weekend baking. I made some banana bread, and Nate helped make ANZAC bikkies and sugar cookies. He'll probably deny it, but I think Nate had a great time decorating the sugar cookies.  Patty made up little packages which Nate, Snoopy and I took round to the neighbours.


The first 36 mince-meat tarts are all gone, maybe I'll get around to baking some more tomorrow morning.

Tree trimming

Walking away from Christmas

Patty went out with her brother yesterday evening to go get our Christmas tree.  They'd just left when it started to snow, quite heavily.  A little later we had an 8 foot Christmas tree in our living room, and a very excited Nate, who could not wait to decorate it.


We very quickly realized though, that there is quite a big difference between the number of lights you need for a 6 foot tree, compared to an 8 foot tree.  Since we have only ever been able to fit a 6 foot tree in our old place in Vancouver, we only had enough lights for a 6 foot tree.  After several failed attempts at trying to stretch the lights to cover the tree, it was pretty clear that we needed to get more lights if we wanted to trim the tree that evening.


By this time, Nate was getting quite frantic about being unable to start the tree decorating.  It was still snowing and blowing like crazy outside and neither one of us really relished the thought of having to venture out for lights in that weather. We tried to convince Nate to wait till the next day to trim the tree, but he was having none of it.  Increasingly distraught  at the prospect of having to wait another day, he bowed his head and wandered away, announcing "I'm walking away from Christmas!"


I found him sitting on the floor of Patty's office, in the dark.  A few minutes later, I was getting snow blasted in the face as I walked to Walmart to get some lights.


Nate got to trim his tree before going to bed.

Nate's third Christmas

How things have changed in the year between Christmases. While Nate was clearly more interested in Christmas last year compared to his first year, he was quite happy to wait till Christmas morning to open his presents. Not so this year.

We brought our tree home on the evening of the 3rd. Our old Christmas tradition involved us walking up to the Lion's tree lot at Oak and 25th, hoisting the tree on our shoulders and walking it the twenty-two odd blocks home. We'd sing carols along the way, to the amusement of the people that we passed. This being Vancouver, we usually did this in the rain. Luckily for us, a tree lot has taken up residence at 12th and Main, making for a much shorter walk home.

The first present under the tree was for Nate. It came in the mail from our friends Lori, Paul and Sosi, who moved from Vancouver to Charlottetown PE last year. From the moment it arrived, Nate could not wait to open it. He'd start the day by saying:

"Can I open my present today dad?"

As the days passed and it got closer and closer to Christmas, the pile under the tree grew larger and larger, and Nate's morning greeting to me evolved into:

"Hey dad! It's Christmas today! Can I open my present?"

My attempts to explain to him that Christmas was still some time away didn't seem to be making any impact and the morning greeting soon became:

"I'm going to open my presents today because it's Christmas!"

More a statement than a question.

When Christmas morning finally came, I thought that he'd be so wound up that his head would pop off or something! Imagine my surprise when I wasn't greeted by the usual morning declaration of his intent to free his presents from their gift-wrap prisons. Instead he was quite subdued and seemed in no hurry to open his presents at all.

After unwrapping his first gift, a Hot wheels monster truck, he announced that he was going to play with it right there and then. Never mind that other gifts under the tree. We actually had to talk him into putting it aside and continue with the unwrapping of gifts. Even then, he would stop after he'd unwrapped a gift, and pick out a gift for either Patty or myself and bring it over to us to unwrap.

Perhaps all that waiting finally wore him out. In any case, I think it all worked out for the best. We had a very relaxing morning unwrapping gifts and got to spend the rest of our Christmas in the company of a few good friends.

I can only imagine what next Christmas will be like.