There is an apartment on the third floor of the highrise next to my mom’s apartment building. This Christmas, in the window of that third floor apartment, shines a glittering Christmas tree.  This tree has mesmerized me all season.  I don’t know exactly why.  Is it because it’s on the third floor and the angle with which I have to look up at it?  Is it because it’s perfectly shaped and I love the retro color of the lights?  Is it because it’s right in the window for all the world (or at least the people on that street) to enjoy? Is it because it was the first tree I saw this season in that building and it made a very good first impression? I am not sure, but I do know this,  I have a story or should I say an illusion, of what it is like up there in that third floor apartment.  In my mind, if they have a tree like that, then it must be a glorious place.  With a lovely cozy kitchen and a fireplace and beautiful music playing and a dog dozing on a large soft comfy couch with a soft luxurious fur or plaid blanket crumpled on the ottoman in case one gets chili.  A tray of pate’ and crackers and a cup of hot chocolate on the side table.  I’ve always wondered what it must be like to live in that highrise, even if only on the third floor.  I stop and stare at it every time I drop my mom off and make my way back to the car.  It has captured my imagination.

I also love to catch a glimpse into homes that leave their blinds open when I drive by.  Better still, a walk would be in order.  Of course, it must be dark in order to see anything and I don’t usually go walking after dark. I imagine what it’s like in these homes.  I see their Christmas trees.  Or their perfectly placed lamps casting ambiance in all the right places.  Or the way they have arranged their furniture and artwork or family pictures.  The interesting levels of the home.  Often I will see the kitchen, with someone cooking or baking in it.  Very often the drapes are not fully open, just enough for me to spot one amazing feature and make up the rest of the decor in my head.  I imagine a wonderful happy family or maybe just a young couple starting out.  From what I can see through the windows, I imagine what life must be like within those four walls.  The way people arrange and decorate their homes tells me a lot about them.  I am not a purposeful peeping Tom but if the opportunity arises, I will look.  I find it intriguing.

I love to spot an entire wall of books akin to a library.  Something I would love to have myself.  Or a living room where a large screen TV is NOT the focal point.  Where you can imagine someone sipping tea and engrossed in an incredible book. There is one home in an area where I used to walk often, that had one entire room, fully windowed, for one piece of furniture. A grand piano. Another home, down the road from this one, boasts a lovely wrap around veranda with a vast expanse of green grass and aged trees adding to its charm. I imagine cotton plantations where folks would gather on the veranda for iced tea on a hot afternoon, with grandmas knitting in rocking chairs and littles playing with toy soldiers. (I do have a rich thought life…LOL) Front entrances speak to me.  Your first impression of a home. Does it say ‘Welcome, I’m so glad you came’ or ‘leave me alone’?  When I lived in Toronto I used to come home through a very posh area and the homes were set very far back from the road.  I loved catching a glimpse inside these stately manors.  It seemed a life I would never know but I think these glimpses into these homes set up ideas in my own imagination of what I wanted my own home to be like. Very often – ok, every time – we go to Niagara on the Lake we drive by the reknowned Canadian artist, Trishia Romances’ home. I know what it looks like inside because of her artwork. And its a dream on the outside, too.

I want my home to reflect love and acceptance.  I want my home to be a place that people never want to leave.  I want others to feel safe and comfortable in my home.  I hope my own family can’t wait to get home each night to a place that is warm, inviting, safe and full of love. I don’t want such exquisite and expensive things that no one feels they can touch or use them.  I guess that’s why most of my furniture is/are cast offs that I dragged home from some place where it/they were no longer wanted.  I once had our home painted and had to take all the personal effects off the walls (as if we were moving) and once it was done, it was a very peaceful atmosphere to have nothing hanging on the walls but I was missing the things I loved and that instilled sentiments I wanted to feel.  So eventually, it all went back up.  I love to have family photos on the walls.  I love to have handmade things sprinkled around.  I love pieces with a story.  I want my home to tell a story and a guest feels like they are reading a good book just by being in it.  I want it to be interesting and mysterious too.  

When I do have the good fortune to see inside someone’s lovely home,  I am reminded of a story that was read to me often as a little girl.  It was Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Match Girl”. My mom read a lot of Hans Christian Anderson and Robert Louis Stevenson to as kids (she was an English teacher). As the story goes …”On a freezing New Year’s Eve a poor young girl, shivering and barefoot, tries to sell matches in the street. Afraid to go home because her father will beat her for failing to sell any matches, she huddles in the alley between two houses and lights matches, one by one, to warm herself.  In the flame of the matches she sees a series of comforting visions: a warm stove, a holiday feast, a happy family, and a Christmas tree. Each vision disappears as its match burns out. (I think this is where I got this obsession of mine.  I have always remembered her looking into windows as opposed to visions).   In the sky she sees a shooting star, which her late grandmother had told her means someone is on their way to Heaven. In the flame of the next match she sees her grandmother, the only person to have treated her with love and kindness. To keep the vision of her grandmother alive as long as possible, the girl lights the entire bundle of matches. When the matches are gone the girl dies, and her grandmother carries her soul to Heaven. The next morning, passers-by find the girl frozen, and express pity. They do not know about the wonderful visions she had seen, or how happy she is with her grandmother in heaven.  

Isn’t it interesting how the things we hear or see when we are young formulate our ideas when we are grown.  I have often imagined myself as the little match girl looking longingly into the windows of others that appear to be living a fairy tale life.  I am sure they are not, just as I am not, but it’s always fun to imagine a little. Is it not?

Welcome 2021.  I had a long list of goals and changes I was going to implement in 2020.  Who didn’t?  I actually had made a private Pinterest board with all the things I wanted to work on in 2020, complete with tutorials and ideas to keep me motivated etc. That, very soon, became redundant.  It’s not that I couldn’t have stayed the course, it was just I wasn’t sure how to concentrate on these things when the world was falling apart around me.  I totally lost my (20-20) vision and focus. 
In a million years, if someone had asked me what 2020 had in store, I never would have come up with pandemic.  I never would have come up with lockdowns and isolation.  Never.  Ever. I didn’t even know that was a thing.  I had no way of knowing that our trip to Mexico in April would be cancelled.  I had no way of knowing that I was going to get laid off of yet another job two weeks after starting.  I had no way of knowing that my whole family would be living in such close quarters for so long with no one leaving the house.  As an introvert, I need time alone to recharge and thrive.  So I found myself going squirrely as my OCD tendencies reached an all time new high.  Not good when you are living with 3 other adults. I (we) suffered financially and probably still will but the Lord has provided for our needs.
I am a person that has a hard time switching gears.  I like to know what’s coming down the pike.  I like order.  I like to ‘know’.  It provides security for me. (albeit false). When everything is in limbo…I don’t do well with that.  So when everything that I thought I had a handle on started to fly apart….it temporarily paralyzed me.  Then I have to sit myself down with an open bible and give myself a pep talk.  I need to journal and pray and find my bearings once again.  Realize what’s expedient and what’s important and what is not.
I had just reinstated myself as a Pampered Chef consultant when the pandemic hit and as luck would have it, everyone confined to home and doing their own cooking and eating in was just the shot in the arm that PC needed.  People started to buy kitchen appliances and gadgets.  Virtual parties became the norm and so I poured myself into that for a few months.  Then I hit a wall. 
I found myself  sewing face masks for people. I came late to the sourdough game but I eventually did arrive there and have been baking sourdough since May 11.  (Which reminds me the sourdough twins haven’t been fed for awhile).   I tried my hand at many other kinds of bread as well and mastered some bread recipes that have become a weekly occurrence. I gave a lot away.  I was able to pour much time into my garden this summer.  It was very rewarding as I watched it grow and flourish.  So enjoyable to just sit in the ‘safety’ of my backyard and enjoy the growth and the sun and the weather…even the rain. I binge watched Netflix.  I got hooked on Amazon.(I mean, I could get everything I needed delivered to my door without going all over town to find it)  No, I did not boycott Amazon.  Great idea Bezos.  I found many new pursuits and tackled old long forgotten ones.  Like quilting.  I didn’t even need to go out and buy fabric.  We watched amazing fireworks at a distance from others and it didn’t impede our enjoyment of them at all. They were especially spectacular (in lieu of this year’s Stampede which was cancelled). 
Although it has been a very strange, unprecedented year.  It has been a much needed one.  I, for one, needed to slow down and smell the roses or the coffee.  I realized I was chasing down unimportant and inconsequential things that helped me maintain the status quo but did nothing for my spiritual, emotional or mental growth.  We must always be growing.  There is no standing still.  We start to go backwards???  I realized I was quite side tracked and totally oblivious to it. This year availed me of a spiritual awakening.  I had all this time on my hands. Why not study and talk to God and go deep into the faith that I profess?  
It certainly was NOT the worst year of my life.  It was baffling and difficult but not the worst.  There were, in fact, many wonderful, memorable things about it.  I am nostalgic so I will remember these times for the rest of my life, even if the burden of the pandemic is lifted at some point. The calm and the extra time.  It was so nice not to be always rushing around and meeting deadlines.  Nice to not have to take care of my image, you know, in case I ran into someone I knew while I was out.  I didn’t go out much and if I did, I was wearing a mask.  There was time to read and time to just sit and listen to the little two year old girl next door sing her little heart out as she played on her own deck.  Not a care in the world.  Then there were my poppies.  Those poppies brought me the greatest joy.  They were a total surprise. The ‘me time’ walks where I lost myself in nature and forgot about the city.  I didn’t have to drive to work everyday because I didn’t have a job anymore.  So that stress was gone and I saved a lot of money on gas.   
We were able to sneak out to BC twice in August and had the best time.  We went to a COVID restricted wedding and it went well.  It was outside and everyone socially distanced and stayed with their own families.  It didn’t diminish the meaning or beauty of the wedding at all.  We bubbled ourselves up at my aunt’s cottage at Sun Peaks and kept to ourselves and it was peaceful and beautiful and total escapism. There is just something about kayaking out into the middle of the calm lake and just breathing in the fresh air, listening to fish jump all around you, surrounded by mountains.  Listening to the loons sing their hauntingly beautiful song in the moonlight.  Laying on the warm dock by day and gazing at the stars by night. 
So as I go into 2021 here’s what I know for sure:  I am here at this time, on this earth, in this pandemic ‘for such a time as this’.  It’s not a mistake that I am here at this time. So what am I going to do about it?   God knows exactly what HE is doing and He is still in control.  I do not fear giving up control of my life to others…God is in control of my life.  I am not responsible for what the government does or says or what they do or don’t do.  I am responsible for me.  I am responsible for my responses, plain and simple. I endeavor to love people and do what is in their best interests.  To be kind and gentle and patient.  I don’t always hit this mark but that is the goal.  So if wearing a mask and staying away from crowds shows love, then that is what I will do.   It doesn’t matter what is going on in the world, the Lord has my back.  He knows how to rescue the those that follow Him. He walks through the valley of the shadow of death with me.  All I need to do is trust Him.  Yes,  the pandemic has cost me greatly in several ways.  But the Lord has a plan and it’s not to harm me.  He will work out all things for my good because I love him and am called according to His purpose and that’s all I need to know. 

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m headed out the office door with a bounce in my step and a song in my heart. I am meeting my husband and our Friday night movie friends at the mall where my husband’s office is. I am excited to meet them at the food court for supper followed by a movie complete with popcorn.  As soon as I step over the threshold of Chapters, I’m in weekend mode.  So much to look at. I love wandering through the mall just to browse as I pass by the store windows. And after the movie I know we’ll be chatting and catching up over a beverage at Starbucks.  We followed this routine for several years until Mike and I moved to another area of the city. We moved into an area that had its own movie theatre with a Starbucks and a Chapters in the same parking lot.  It was perfect.  Eventually popcorn became our supper and Starbucks our dessert after the movie.  Every Friday night, we went to a movie.  Sometimes the movies were great and sometimes not so much. We had a good laugh, especially when we invited our adult kids to join us.   It was decided that I would become the chooser and discerner of our movies so watched less crap.  It was just a fun date night.  The friends that joined us every Friday night (and for many years – we met Wednesday nights for wings as well) were just as enthusiastic about the routine as we were. 
Starbucks and Chapters.  These places became my home away from home.  Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, had a vision that his coffee shops would be the third place for people.  First – home. Second – Work and Third – Starbucks.  Well I drank the Starbucks Kool Aid, literally. Through no fault of my own, I found this particular Starbucks/Chapters becoming my second place due to the fact that in the span of the ten plus years we have lived at our current address,  I have been laid off five times.  Yes, that’s right…five times.  I never would have left ANY of these jobs on my own as I loved each of them.  So when I would find myself with hours and hours each day that I was at a loss to fill or just sick and tired of being at home while all my friends were working, I would drive myself to Starbucks/Chapters.  My happy place.  Very often I would bring a burlap Italian Market bag full of journals, books, day timer, and iPad and I would dream and plan life.  My next step.  My next thing.  I’d grab my favorite beverage (the barista’s knew me and my drink by name.  Very often my drink was waiting on the counter before I even got to the till to pay for it).  There were also many regulars – like me.  Just filling in lost hours in the day and hoping to bump into a fellow conversationalist. The regulars. We didn’t actually know each other and yet we did.  Because we came to recognize each other and our Starbucks habits.  I am not all that social verbally,  but many of them had obviously become fast friends.  I still don’t talk to strangers, even though I’m 63.   It was obvious many went for companionship.  Many were there for business meetings.  Many were on their laptops doing their business. Meeting friends.  Hosting a knitting club.  One of my friends and I met at this Starbucks/Chapters every single Monday night for years as we tried to solve each other’s problems and ragale each other with family antics. Iron sharpening iron.  There was just something about that particular location that held the secrets of my universe.  It was a fun place.  A healing place.  A problem solving place.  A shopping place.  A planning place.  A dreaming place.  When I just wanted to be part of something bigger than my life or just part of the action, that was my ‘go to’ place.  Many people that know me find that very strange…since I don’t even drink coffee.  Like I said I drank Howard Schultz’s Kool Aid.  
As you can probably surmise, I am in mourning now that I cannot frequent this trio of life giving amenities for me. It all began when our movie and wing friends decided to move to Hawaii for six months a year.  We tried to keep the movie thing going but it just wasn’t the same.  We did, however, visit them in Hawaii every year and go to movies.  The first true sadness came when Randy (of our Friday night movie couple friends) passed away from cancer.  We just didn’t feel like going to movies much anymore. Then my friend and I quit our Monday night meetings as we moved into different phases of life. Next, the pandemic hit us early in spring and the theatres and Chapters and Starbucks were shut down.  I could only go to a drive thru Starbucks in a neighboring community to keep the habit alive.  I was hanging on for dear life.  By summer they opened things back up a bit and we could go to my favorite Starbucks and sit outside.  So we availed ourselves of that.   Chapters was open but you had to limit your time inside the store due to the lineup of people waiting (a result of attempting to reduce crowding inside).  No more lollygagging with beverage in hand. We were wearing masks and drying out our hands with hand sanitizer.  The wall that used to be open between Starbucks and Chapters now closed.  One couldn’t even use the washrooms. The Starbucks floor was covered in green arrows telling you where you could stand and walk and breathe.  The tables had signs on them as to which ones could be used and which ones couldn’t, for the sake of social distancing.  Starbucks is NOT a social distancing place.  Hello?  A regular like myself, could ascertain that Chapters was having trouble keeping their shelves stocked.  The magazine section was bare and there were sections of the store roped off.  Even the precautions they were taking at the theatres, once they opened back up, made us not want to go back.  Everything was loosing its charm.
One fateful day in November, the day of the Starbucks Christmas rollout, I took myself to ‘my’ Starbucks only to find it closed….indefinitely.  I went into the Chapters to ask one of the clerks I was familiar with what was going on and she said they were closed until further notice (but probably forever).  With the new restrictions in place, and they not having a drive through, they decided to close shop.  And now theatres are closed again.  I overheard one particular customer service rep at Chapters explain to a customer that Chapters was suffering due to no Starbucks.  My heart sank.  Everything was changing and my happy place was hanging on by a thread. Chapters was open through Christmas and I did go several times but it just wasn’t the same.  Just didn’t feel like Christmas and every time I went, there was less and less product on the shelves.  I dropped by again this afternoon as I fear it’s only a matter of time before the Chapters closes too and I want to remember my last time there.  I saw stuff on the shelves I hadn’t seen for months, indicative of them pulling our everything from the stockroom to fill the shelves.  Do I see the writing on the wall?  Time will tell.  But this is a chapter (pardon the pun) of my life I may have to totally close the door on and then find a way to mourn the whole thing.
So what has the pandemic taken from me?  It has taken this place of joy and sanity from me.  Just one of the many losses of 2020.  The memories are sweet and poignant.  I will remember the good times.  The precious times.  The fun.  The camaraderie. And look for what is next.  Possibly I was wasting too much time in a place that was not steering me towards God’s plan for my life.   Or maybe it just is what is. I will mourn for a time and then I will move on. 

We had us a time Chapters/Starbucks and Landmark. 

I find myself wondering where the days go at this time of year.  I just wake up and get started and I notice a darkness starting to infiltrate about 3:30.  You know what I am talking about. I mean, it’s not actually dark until about 4:30 but the darkness starts to creep in mid afternoon.  It’s eerie.   There are barely 8 hours of daylight in December.  It’s unnerving.  It’s also detrimental. Because when does a person have more to do than in December?  And when it gets dark,  I start thinking about bedtime.  Even though there are still a good 6 – 8 hours of productive time to use.  Now I know where the song “In the Bleak Midwinter came from”. My smart watch usually tells me to start winding down for bed around 9:30.  I laugh.  No self respecting workaholic goes to bed at 9:30 no matter how dark it is.  

However, I have to share my kitchen these days with my daughter as we are both baking for a living.  We need an industrial kitchen so desperately.  The guys can’t ever have supper in there.  Good thing we have a Pampered Chef air fryer because it does so much more than air fry and they can cook all their food in it.  So while Lexie was baking her cookies tonite, I took the opportunity to run out for more ingredients.  Butter, pecans…all the cheap stuff.  While I was driving to my local supermarket, I was bombarded with zillions of gorgeous Christmas lights.  There really does seem to be more people putting up more Christmas lights this year.  Earlier too.  Even if they’ve never had lights in the past, it seems they do now and the ones that always had the lights seem to have put up more than before.  This makes my drive like a parade of Christmas joy.   I like to critique the lights as I am going by. Good Effort.  Close but no cigar.  Why bother?  Beautiful!!   Stunning!!  A lot of work, Bravo. What were you thinking? And my heart leaps within me. All that darkness lit up like the Northern lights.  

We live in a dark, dark world these days.  It can be scary.  We crave light.  We crave hope.  We crave joy.  Jesus is the light of the world and all the darkness in the universe cannot snuff out His light. As St. Francis of Assisi said.  “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”  When I see house after house, all it up, I am reminded of the light of the world.  I am calmed by these lights.  These lights make it seem like there is nothing awry on the planet and its Christmas as usual.

 The ‘lights’ part of Christmas has always been my favorite thing.  Hey, does anyone remember those bubble lights for the Christmas tree?  My grandma always had those on her tree and since we had to sleep all over the living room floor when we visited my grandparents at Christmas (because we had 7 kids), I always chose to sleep right under the tree with one of these bubble lights in my line of vision.  I was mesmerized by the bubbles.  Eventually, they would lull me to sleep because I never actually ever saw Santa Claus on any of these Christmas eves. 

But the lights still draw me in.  They tell me it’s Christmas.  They tell me all is well with the world (even if it doesn’t seem like it). Or that all will eventually be well. Taking myself on a neighborhood tour of lights, I could actually forget that the whole world’s gone mad. I sat in front of our Christmas tree for a few moments last night, to catch my breath and just watched the dancing lights bounce off the ornaments and cast prisms on the floor and wall and I thought to myself “I should do more of this”.  I should do more sitting in front of the lights – breathing. 

2020 has given new meaning to the song or phrase “I’ll be Home for Christmas”.  We’ll all be ‘home’ for Christmas this year.  This means something different for each of us. For some, home is a location.  For others, it’s a person or persons.  And for still others, it’s a certain set of circumstances. For me, home is being with my people. I remember the year that Lexie did not come home from London for Christmas. It was horrible. I had a very hard time being ‘merry’. But we survived and lived to celebrate other ‘in-person’ Christmases. Then there was the year that Mike drove to Vancouver on Saturday and picked up both kids and drove home on Sunday to get them here in time for Christmas. (Lexie was moving back home so she could not bring all her belongings on the plane). I felt like my whole world was in that rented van and it had better get here in one piece. And it did. Made my Christmas.

Last year I was at home, along with most of my immediate family – my mom, my siblings and their families, as they all gathered in Calgary for a family Christmas. They flew in from all parts of the globe. We knew at the time that this particular scenario might never happen again and not for the reasons we now know.  With an 88 year old mother and many coming from overseas we just knew this was a ‘moment in time’.  In  retrospect, God blessed us abundantly by letting our 2019 Christmas all come together.  We all stayed together in the same house.  We were free to sit and linger in Chapters/Starbucks.  Free to drive out to the mountains and walk through the Banff Springs Hotel and the Chateau Lake Louise.  Free to eat out.  Free to go to the movies.  Free to congregate at the mall and finish our last minute shopping. Free to skate or ski. Free to go to Christmas Markets. Free to go to Christmas Eve service at church. Free to go to Christmas concerts. Free to eat Christmas dinner together.  Free to act out the Christmas pageant on Christmas Eve.  Free to borrow a friends house for extra space.  Free to fly for non- essential reasons.  Free to host and go to Christmas parties.  But that was then and this is now. 

I was always planning on having a low key Christmas this year after the hullabaloo of last year.  Well an exhausting hallabaloo for me – the event planner.  Somebody had to do it. Somebody that lived in Calgary and since my mom had shirked her duties and flitted off to Australia until December 20th – it all fell on my shoulders.  Not that I don’t love to plan a good event. But I digress.  I was planning on having a quiet low key Christmas this year.  However,  I was planning on having it in Toronto or Vancouver.  But ce la vie, it shall be in Calgary – again. There are worse places to Christmas.  As providence would have it, both of our adult children are part of our household for the time being, so we shall all be together for Christmas.  Which is a blessing to be grateful for since I know it is not like that for others. SO we will do our usual Christmas thing.  Eat our Christmas food. Follow our entrenched family traditions and basically just enjoy each other’s company in our red plaid flannel pajamas.  We will watch movies.  Make puzzles.  Eat junk. We even have a modest amount of gifts to give and receive.  We’ll stay out of the malls and have wiener roasts in the backyard around the firepit.  And we’ll love every minute of it.  

Being ‘home’ for Christmas seems to be the epitome of the grandest of Christmases. One of my favorite Christmas songs as of late is Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home for Christmas’. It stirs up all the sentiments. However,  I DO sympathize with those that will not be able to get together in someone’s ‘home’ with their next of kin. If my adult children didn’t live at home, I’d probably be sitting in the garage with the car running and the door closed. It just doesn’t seem right. And yet,  maybe there are things to embrace about a slower paced and quieter Christmas.  Maybe we can spend more time remembering Emmanuel.  God with Us.  We are never alone because God is always with us and maybe for this Christmas we could invite Him to be our guest.  To occupy the empty chairs around the Christmas table. Maybe this is an opportunity to release excess and embrace enough.  Maybe we can spend more time reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas instead of running around like maniacs trying to please everyone. Maybe we can just walk the dog instead of ‘putting on the dog’. And for those of you looking for an excuse not to get together with the whole fam damily…here it is.  Take advantage.  Sometimes family dynamics are difficult and trying and this year you are off the hook. 

And yes, there will those that will be alone for Christmas. This has been a tragedy for as long as Christmas has been a thing.  It’s ‘still a problem’.  Probably more so this year. And in past years many saints have tried to make Christmas’s more joyful for those who are alone and this year is no exception.  Be creative.  Help a shut in.  Or even your own parents, especially if you are not seeing the whites of their eyes this Christmas.  We can still drop things off on doorsteps.  We can still send letters and cards. There is UPS and FedEx. We can even ZOOM and facetime.  We can call – yes those smart phones we have in our pockets ARE communication devices. (I sometimes forget I can use it to place a call. ) And some of you still have prehistoric land lines.  Use them.  What’s ironic is that we could be considered among those senior shut ins were it not for having adult kids living at home. Many of my friends will not get to see their children in person this Christmas.

I am looking forward to a quieter Christmas this year.  And I don’t mind being at home.  All the while, being very aware I am in blessed circumstances.  And don’t forget…the calendar says Christmas is on December 25th but we can have it or make it on any day we want. Middle of July – we can celebrate Christmas. The minute we can see each other again. We can plan and have Christmas. I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.