The Lazy Days of Christmas

"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy." - Milan Kundera

By the time I get to Christmas night, I've normally hit the wall of fatigue.  And after eating an enormous turkey dinner, it is all I can do to keep my eyes open long enough to undress and tumble into bed.  But a long, deep sleep was to be elusive for me this Christmas night.  Merv left for England  on the red-eye flight after our Christmas dinner.  It was his brother, Eric's, 60th birthday on Boxing Day and Merv wanted to surprise him. I normally don't fret about Merv travelling but on Christmas night, I could do little else.  Sleep didn't come until after 6 A.M. when I received his text to tell me he had arrived in London.  I managed to sleep for a couple of hours and then got up to fret about the four hour drive I knew he was making on the wrong side of the road after his own sleepless night.  I was overwhelmed with relief when he called with the news he was with his brother.

So it was with heavy eyes that I headed out to see a movie with Jacob on Boxing Day afternoon.  It has been our tradition since Jacob was little, to see a movie on Boxing Day as it was my family's tradition when I was small.  It felt a bit strange to be going without Merv.  After some discussion and some negotiation, we finally settled on seeing Life of Pi.  I wanted to see Guilt Trip, thinking it would be amusing to see a film about a mother and son road trip with my son.  But Jacob was truly not interested.  Likewise, he didn't want to see Les Miserables and he had already seen Argo.  I read Life of Pi many years ago and I remember the story well.  The reviews of the movie have been excellent but I knew it would be intense and it certainly was.  After seeing it, I wasn't at all sure I wouldn't be facing another sleepless night.  But we stopped at Cath's for turkey leftovers and by 11 o'clock I could hardly keep my eyes open.  I exchanged a couple of texts with Merv and slept like a stone until 7. 

The house looks like it has been hit by a bomb.  The dishes are all clean but my Christmas china needs to be boxed and stored away until next year.  The whole house needs a thorough vacuuming and the kitchen floor needs to be washed.  And yet today, I have been lazy, barely doing the minimum of housework.  We ordered Chinese food for dinner. Tonight we will watch movies and talk.  The mess can wait another day.  I'd rather take the time tonight to enjoy the companionship of my wonderful son on this lazy post-Christmas day.

And a Child Will Lead Them

"The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fatling will be together, and a child will lead them". - Isaiah 11:6

It is Christmas Eve, still dark on this morning so close to the Winter Solstice.  The grocery store opened a half hour ago and in spite of my best intentions to be there, I am still enjoying my coffee in the den while I watch the daylight dawn over the ravine.  I am a Christmas girl who has been struggling mightily these past couple of weeks to find my Christmas spirit.  It is unlike me.  I was leaning into it before the shootings at Sandy Hook pretty much destroyed any momentum I had made. Try as I might, I haven't yet found my way back.

I've been trying to think of all the good things that have happened this year.  I took some good trips, got my paralegal license, watched my son rise to the top of his university engineering class.   But in this year I've also witnessed much sadness and loss.  Really, it that I've been thinking of most these past weeks.  The world already felt sad to me and then Sandy Hook happened.

I will try with all my might today to put all that aside.  It is Christmas, the time of miracles.  I will finish wrapping the gifts, set the table for our annual Christmas Eve dinner, buy the groceries, make the cod fritters and the trifle and find the recipe for the Bivver Shivers that we're planning to serve as our specialty cocktail tonight.  I will clean the house and arrange the flowers, chill the champagne and sing carols while I work.  As for the sadness caused by the slaughter of twenty innocent children, I've decided to reframe things.  In The Holy Bible Isaiah wrote "And a child will lead them."  I believe twenty children will lead the U.S. from the darkness of guns and violence now and people will finally find the will to do what they must.

Wishing you peace and joy.

Dreaming of a Green Christmas

"A lot of people like snow.  I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water." - Carl Reiner

In 1940, Irving Berlin wrote the song "White Christmas" for the film Holiday Inn.  Recorded by Bing Crosby, the song became a Christmas classic.  It is this song that I blame for brainwashing a whole population of people at that time and in subsequent years into dreaming year after year of a snowy Christmas.

Other than through the song and in the movies, I can't really think of what the association is between Christmas and snow.  Historians tell us that Jesus was most likely born in September in Bethlehem though his birth may have been as early as June.  Whether in June, July, August or September, there was no snow in Bethlehem. At the time Berlin wrote the song, he was living in Hollywood.  There was no snow there either. 

If there was ever a time we don't need snow it is at Christmas when travellers are trying to drive and fly around the continent.  Snow causes delays in the air and on the ground.  It makes driving much less safe and forces shoppers to move through malls in heavy coats and boots. 

You won't catch me dreaming of a white Christmas.  I would be just as happy if I never saw another flake of snow.

Christmas Miracles

Have you any old grudges you would like to pay,
Any wrongs laid up from a bygone day?
Gather them now and lay them away
When Christmas comes.
Hard thoughts are heavy to carry, my friend,
And life is short from beginning to end;
Be kind to yourself, leave nothing to mend
When Christmas comes.
- William Lytle ("When Christmas Comes")

My work has been interesting lately.  I've certainly been busy, far busier than at any other Christmas in my consulting years.  I like busy.  But it has also been very stressful.  I've been dealing with two of the most difficult client situations I've ever faced.

Yesterday was the day we finally went to mediation to try to resolve a termination situation that happened in April.  I spent many days trying to get counsel on the other side to agree to just meet me for a cup of coffee so we could try and resolve the issues last spring before it ended up in a large and difficult lawsuit.  She would not meet me.  So the suit was filed.  It was ugly and messy for both sides and the only ones who fared well were the lawyers.  In Ontario, before a case can proceed to trial, the parties are required to attend a consentual mediation.  It took eight months, but we finally got there.  While we started far apart, we ended late in the afternoon with an agreement that everyone could live with.  Frankly, we could have reached the same agreement last May in an hour spent over a latte at The Second Cup.  But at least we're there.  It was an incredible Christmas blessing for my client who has behaved with more dignity in these eight months than anyone could have expected or imagined.  And then a little something extra - the other side made a kind gesture that allowed my client to get his money now instead of next January.  The gesture was unbidden and surprising.  Somewhere in the stillness of the room, when my client's eyes brimmed with tears, I could almost swear I heard the flap of an angel's wing. 

A couple of weeks ago, I brokered an agreement between two parties who were also concluding an employment relationship.  They were extremely angry with each other and both were behaving badly.  They wanted to be right more than they wanted to be happy.  Neither party wanted to accept any responsibility for how their relationship had so badly soured, each blaming the other for all the problems.  I lost count of how many times I quoted Dr. Phil in my discussions with the parties ("No matter how flat you make a pancake it always has two sides").  After six weeks of daily effort, I decided the only way to make progress was to get both parties to sit in a room together and talk.  I finally got them to agree to meet on the condition that the meeting would take place in neutral territory.  I sat them at my kitchen table and they talked.  An hour later we had an agreement.  Some buyers remorse the next day had both parties revisiting parts of the agreement.  Eventually we got there.  I sent each party to their respective lawyers to paper the deal as there were very complex tax, accounting and immigration details to be inked.  Yesterday morning, the deal fell apart.  I was very disappointed, for both sides.  The end of the deal meant one party wouldn't make it home for Christmas and the other wouldn't be in a position to go through with his holiday plans.  Throughout the day yesterday, I was innundated with phone calls, texts and emails from the clients.  Though I had advised both that I was unavailable to deal with the situation until today, neither could accept that I wasn't instantly available and responsive.  I spent several hours last night trying to figure out if there was a way to salvage the situation but sadly could think of nothing. Both parties were dug in and there was no sign that either would relent.  So I was extremely surprised to get a note at 11:00 o'clock last night.  One party took a big step forward and in response, the other met her half way.  For the second time in one day, I felt the breeze of an angel's flapping wings.

A Call to Action

"By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim… we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.        - Martin Luther King, Jr. 

What is there to say on a December morning, ten days before Christmas when as I write, the names of the twenty children, killed by a madman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut are about to be read on CNN?  They were babies.  Innocent, beautiful babies.  Their parents have, no doubt, already bought their Christmas gifts.  They've taken their annual photos with Santa.  They've put up their trees and Christmas lights.  Who will unwrap those presents now?  Who will take down the trees and pack the ornaments away?  How will the parents of those children go on?  How can they even breathe?


In the weeks ahead, this story will fade from the news.  Eventually Colombine did.  Eventually the shooting that gravely wounded Gabby Gifford did.  Eventually, the movie theatre shooting did.  So what's the plan now?  Will we only remember this horror when the next mass shooting occurs?

Since yesterday afternoon, I've been hearing that this is not the time to talk about gun control.  So far, four guns have been found - three inside the school and one in the shooter's car.  One of them was a semi-automatic assault rifle.  In the name of God, I'm begging all my friends and family in the U.S., stand up today.  Take action. Make changes.  If not now, when?

Angels and Laundry

"The earth has grown old with its burden of care, but at Christmas it always is young, the heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair, and its soul full of music breaks the air, when the song of angels is sung." - Phillips Brooks

Jacob is home.  It is finally Christmas.  We picked him up from Guelph this morning along with Courtney and a huge bag of laundry.  Though I invited Courtney to bring her laundry too, she is saving it to take home to Collingwood on Wednesday after she writes her last exam.  Court is just here for a few days.  I will drive her back to Guelph on Wednesday morning ensuring we have sufficient time to get her to her 11:30 exam.  Later that day her dad will pick her up and take her home.  In the time between Wednesday and the return trip to school in January, Jacob will spend a few days in Collingwood with Court's family and she will come to Toronto and spend a few days with us.  

I had the star out, waiting for Jacob to put it on the top of the tree when he got home.  I've been looking for something else to use as a tree topper for several years but in spite of my search I haven't been able to find something else that works better.  The star is pretty but it's badly constructed and always a bit lopsided on the tree.  I don't know who designed it but it's in serious need of a rethink.  In spite of Jacob's best efforts, he couldn't find a way to make the star work on the top of this year's tree without getting the pruning shears out and giving the tree a redesign so I told him not to bother.  He positioned the lights at the top of the tree and helped me drape the crystalline ribbon.  The tree looked fine but it was nagging at me that there wasn't a proper ornament for the top.

A while after we finished and I was cleaning up, I glanced at a stained glass angel that has been hanging in my living room since we moved here.  The angel was a gift from my friend Janice who is now an angel herself.  It is a stylized piece in white and royal blue.  I started to wonder if there was some way to place Janice's angel at the top of the tree.  I gave the task of figuring it out to Jacob.  It took him less than five minutes to secure the stained glass angel to new heights.

I love both the look and the idea of that particular angel topping the Christmas tree.  I often think of my friend Janice.  I like to think she is watching over us from the heavens.  Somehow, seeing that angel makes me feel sure of it.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she handles these three things:  a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights." - Maya Angelou

Last Saturday, Merv put up our two Christmas trees.  I am responsible for decorating the main floor tree and he is responsible for decorating the downstairs tree.  Every year, I change the main floor tree to reflect the theme of our Christmas.  This year, we are having a Newfoundland-themed Christmas in the colours of pink, white and green like the flag of Newfoundland before it joined Confederation in 1947.  If you asked Merv last week how many strands of lights I've purchased over the years, he would have told you more than he could count in every colour of the rainbow.  But he would have been wrong.  For the past ten years, I've been trying to find pink lights for the tree.  Until this year, I hadn't found them.  Now we have eight strands.

The tree Merv bought for the living room this year is very tall - too tall for me to handle.  On the ladder I managed to get lights on all but the top foot.  There is not a chance I could get the star up, though I wouldn't put it up anyway as I leave that honour to Jacob when he gets home from school.  I figured he could adjust the lights (which I left hanging loosely) to cover the gap at the same time he put up the star.  It took me a whole afternoon to get the lights on.  I've been really busy with work so I didn't get around to doing the lights until Wednesday.  I got up on Thursday morning at 5:30 to put up the decorations.  Again, there are gaps high in the branches that will have to be filled in by Jacob.  I wanted to ribbon the tree with pink crystalline ribbon but the tree is so tall I can't get it started on my own.  I called Cath to ask if she would help me on Thursday night but that didn't work out so it is Saturday afternoon and the tree is still unribboned.  I guess it will be one more job for Jacob when he gets home tomorrow.

In chatting with Geraldine on Thursday afternoon, I learned that Brian put up their tree last weekend as well.  It was still waiting to be decorated and Ger didn't much seem to have the heart to do it.  Her dad is very sick and this is the first Christmas without Beverley so it's no wonder she is struggling with finding her Christmas spirit.  I decided looking at a naked tree in her living room couldn't be helping so yesterday I went over and decorated their tree too.  I enjoyed the time with Ger.  And it seemed to boost both our spirits. While they were out this morning, I went and ribboned their tree with beautiful gold crystalline ribbon.  Their tree is a foot shorter than mine so I had no problem reaching the tall branches.  I hope they like it.