Word Prisms

As I get older, I naturally fall into a contemplation of what was and what could have been. This is particularly the case with Christmas. For one reason or another, in Canada, Christmas has become the ultimate family event. As families age and children move to homes of their own, obligations require that they celebrate this annual event in places other than what their parents have traditionally called home. My wife and I spent the first decade alternating Christmases between her folks and mine. Her parents would delay Christmas on the years spent at mine. Now, my wife and I find ourselves in the same situation as our parents, only our children are not separated by a few hundred kilometres, they’re separated by thousands. So, for us to get together at least once over the Christmas holidays isn’t always possible. The year my daughters were two and four, we spent Christmas at my parents. Nicola had made dresses for both and they kind of looked like dolls. My parents m...

I like Christmas.   Sure, it’s become separated from the original message celebrating the birth of the messiah, a guy who lived in poverty and gave his life for the salvation of humankind.   Instead, we’re accused of worshipping at the altar of consumerism in the temple of our local mall where we seek solace from the emptiness of our existence in the purchase of stuff we may or may not ever use or need. But, I’ll just forget about all that for Christmas ‘cause for me, Christmas is all about tradition, thinking about others, however briefly, and the one time in the year, my family gets together in the same place at the same time.   New baby with tree I love the natural pine-fresh smell of our freshly cut tree we found in a restricted area next to a capped oil pump.   Every year we go out Christmas tree hunting, even the year Nicola was pregnant with our youngest and had experienced her first contractors earlier in the afternoon, a fact she failed to tell me ...