I am warming up to Christmas.  Last weekend we went to see A Christmas Carol.  And I was feeling a bit like Scrooge.  Not because I hate Christmas, actually I suppose Scrooge didn’t really hate Christmas either, but because I was feeling a certain amount of disconnect.

I have been thinking about the prairies a lot lately.  And frankly, I have even been thinking about buying a farm house out of the city (in SK) somewhere.  I mean, in a couple of years, if it was affordable.  It’s a reaction to this big city life.  Don’t get me wrong, I am really starting to enjoy Calgary.  We have found a really cool church, I am joining a poetry group, I have read once and I have started writing again.  Everything is going well.  Even, considering where we could be, our apartment is great.  But, I know that I don’t really belong to this city.

I think, as it turns out, I might be a pretty simple person at heart.  Even though I thought I was a city-boy, well, Regina isn’t much of a city.  I miss the sky.  I miss the cold.  I miss not waking up with my nose dry and my face peeling so that I have to put industrial vaseline on it so it doesn’t fall off… its so dry here, basically a dessert.

But some people just don’t know when to quit.  I can be thankful of that quality in Leah.  Everyday when I come home the Christmas music is blasting and she’s baking something else (I made some ginger snaps, turned out pretty good).  And so, ever so cooly, the Christmas spirit has been warmed and from time-to-time you can here me humming a Christmas carol.

And as Tracy pointed out once:

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.  May that be truly said of us, and all of us!  And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!