Holidays on Holiday

by Adam Slade

“Dashing through the snooow,

In a one moose open sleigh,

O'er the fields we gooo,

Dodging bears all the way,

Bells on cat tails riiing

Knocking down trees tonight

Oh what fun it is to sing

In a Newfie accent toniiight.”

This Christmas will be my first spent away from the family. Let me explain for the sake of those who haven’t read my earlier articles. Because I’m nice like that. Stop rolling your eyes.

Back in April I decided that, as much as I like my family, real bacon, and decent cheddar, I would rather like to fly to Canada and marry my sweetheart. Y’know, ‘cause I’m weird like that.

So I headed to the airport, sat at the wrong terminal for an hour, and I was off.

It’s now many months later and Christmas is approaching. In fact it’s already on the highway in its ’57 Chevrolet, windows down, Radar Love blaring out of the speakers. And it ain’t braking for ice patches, moose, or odd Englishmen with crude goatees.

It’s not that I want to go home. Far from it. I want to experience Chrimbo, Newfoundland style. It’s just that I’m a rather traditional person at heart, and it takes me a while to break a habit. And this one’s a doozy.

My prior Christmases were standard in their, um, standarditude, but I loved them. Early rise, early stumble down the stairs, early cuddle of dog(s), first cup of tea, wait for appearance of grandparent, another cup of tea, open things, rejoice, more tea, too much chocolate, watch grandparent fall asleep while watching classic comedy re-runs and sipping tea. It was simple, it was a little heavy on the tea, but it was very happy.

This Christmas will be a little different. For one thing, I may freeze to death in my sleep. That would be a bummer. We will have lights, and we will have a tree, but it will be a cat friendly fibre-optic tree. There won’t be any dogs to sniff at the cable and give me a heart attack when I think they’ll bite through it.

There will be fun and frolics, and general merry-making, and I will have to find some mistletoe and use it whenever Sweetie is least expecting it, but my brother won’t be there to make retching sounds when I do.

And there won’t be my folks. I’m not one for sentimentality most of the year, but Christmas is special. It’s a time for family.

That being said, I am looking forward to a few quiet days with the missus and the cat. So far we’ve been through two birthdays and a Canada Day together, but not a Christmas or New Years Day. Those were previously spent over the webcam, unwrapping on camera (assuming things arrived on time) and wishing they’d implement Hug-O-Vision.

This time, though, we’ll get to exchange presents in the same time zone, and I won’t have to wipe the lip marks off my monitor.

Uh, not that I ever did that. Honest.

Merry Christmas, folks.