Dec. 14: Missing my family at Christmas

 When our son was born, I promised his mother that I would never take him from her on Christmas or his birthday. I guess I'm a little sexist but I believe that the bond a mother forms with her child is much stronger than the one formed by the father. I have anecdotal evidence of this. When the B-Man is in my care, I can always count on numerous calls from his mom. She is not pestering me; she just wants to know how our son is doing. Did he eat? Have his teeth been brushed? Did he have fun today? Does he look adorable right now? (That answer is always yes, by the way.)

The same is not true when the B-Man is in his mom's care. I don't call her to see how he's doing. I just naturally assume that he's being looked after. 

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So I was a little surprised when, in the fall of 2017, she told me I could take the B-Man home to Alberta for Christmas. This was pure generosity on her part. She wanted my parents to enjoy at least one Christmas with their geographically distant grandson. So we went, arriving on Christmas Eve, and it was a fun vacation but I still felt a little guilty. I knew that out east, in Alexandria, B-Man's mom and sister were celebrating a muted December 25. 

Well, as I recall, we celebrated early and B-Man's sister got a personalized Calgary Flames jersey from me and B-Man got a toy toolset from his mom.

You know what? I think I just figured something out.

Ashley, which is the name of B-Man's mom, is BAD!!!!! Here is why she is BAD!!!!! When Ashley buys Christmas presents, she never gives them to you on Christmas. Ashley can't wait to share her love. Normally, this is a good thing but it is not good when it comes to Christmas presents. Christmas presents must only be opened on December 25. Failure to do this is BAD!!!!!!!

Now there are exceptions, of course. If you're exchanging presents at an office Christmas party, for example, you can open them then and there. For the most part, you're not going to be around your co-workers on Christmas Day.

Another exception is if some of your family members are going to be absent on Christmas. Say, for example, that some of them are flying out to ALBERTA!!!!!! Well, you would be justified in wanting to do the gift exchange before those people fly out west. So guess what? You get to open your Christmas presents early.

I'm on to you, Ash. That whole 2017 fiasco was just an excuse so you could open your presents early. This kind of subterfuge must not go unpunished. Therefore, in my capacity as the person who is always right (also known as "the man") I have decided that this season, we will celebrate Christmas the way the Coptic Christians do, which is on JANUARY 7!!!!

I have hidden all the presents. Not telling you where they are. No! Stop pestering me. BAD!!!!!!! January 7! Mark it on your calendar. That's when we'll do our ho ho ho.

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Seriously though, I do miss my family and I imagine I will miss them even more this Christmas. I am not alone in this. I can't tell you how many people have told me that, once again, it will be a lonely festive season this year. Thanks to buggabugga and the new costume it's wearing these days, no one wants to mill around airports or get on airplanes. In March, it will be two whole years since I've seen my parents, siblings, nephews, and niece in the flesh. That's the longest I have ever gone without seeing them. I've been living in East Ontario for close to two decades now and, in normal times, I usually visited home at least twice a year. But it's not normal times anymore. 

I know that travel is a privilege, not a right, so I will be grateful if we ever achieve that fabled herd immunity that makes all this stuff safe again. Truth be told, I'm not too scared of dying of buggabugga. My immune system is pretty top notch. I rarely take ill and I am grateful for that too. But I sure don't want to pass buggabugga on to anyone else. Same goes for kiddo.

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I think this Christmas will be a happier one for my parents than it was in recent years. In 2019, when buggabugga was all the rage, Christmas dinner took place in their kitchen. Only two seats. Things have opened up a little and I believe this Christmas will see extended family gathering in their suburban bungalow. My mom will bake a turkey and there will be mashed potatoes and peas and stuffing and the best gravy in all of history. There will be red wine and white wine but no Dr. Pepper for my teetotaller self. (I have never used recreational drugs, remember?*) Dessert, as always, will be Christmas pudding, a dish whose calorie total is greater than everything else a person has consumed throughout the year. 

I think my dad will say grace and that he will ask a special blessing on his absent son and I think I will feel that prayer wash over me as I am watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special or watching my kid shovel yet another Dominos's pepperoni pizza down his throat. 

And once again, I think I will feel bad that buggabugga has decimated the number of paying magic shows I got this year, meaning that, once again, I can't send any Christmas presents out west. I am grateful that my family understands this and that they know that, should I find myself financially blessed sometime in the future, that I will remember them.

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Once again, I have chosen this photo to be the artwork for note-a-day. It shows my mom and her grandson on Christmas Eve. They are examining a snowglobe. My kid was four. I don't think he was happy when he first arrived at my parents' house. His first instinct was to drag me toward the front door. He wanted to go back home. He was too young to understand the complexity of the matter. We were thousands of kilometres from home, which, to B-Man, was where his mom was.

I kind of think it will always be that way. 

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* Some people think caffeine is a recreational drug. Only impossibly picky Leos think that. If you smoked for a week when you were a teenager (but didn't inhale) in order to impress your friends, impossibly picky Leos will also think you recreationally used nicotine. All five members of Backstreet Boys, the entire roster of the Montreal Canadiens, and Choi Hong Hi (the person who coined the term Tae Kwon Do) all agree that Leos should stop being so picky.