A Snowy Boomerang Christmas

It keeps snowing over here. We didn’t have any at all until last week and then it dumped on us all at once. It snowed again yesterday which means I have to go out there and shovel again this morning.

I don’t mind. I don’t mind the shovelling or the snow. Besides being good exercise first thing in the morning, it sure makes it look a lot more like Christmas. It felt kind of weird to be looking for Christmas presents when Santa’s reindeers was standing in the green grass and Santa himself needed a raincoat.

I took these pictures in our back yard when I went out to shovel yesterday. I tried to get one of Pumpkin dashing through the snow, running half way up the tree then jumping down in the fluffy stuff but she was too quick for our archaic slow-motion camera.





The part I do mind about the snow that keeps falling even as I write this is the road conditions. I keep hoping it’s going to stop so the roads will be clear and dry for all the travellers who will venture out over the holidays. There’s always plenty of everything else going on at that time of the year without having to worry about road conditions too. But, like I keep saying about a lot of other things, it’s not in our control. So worrying or fretting about it is wasted energy I could spend much better elsewhere like focusing on everyone being safe on the road instead.

Christmas is sneaking around the corner fast and everywhere the excitement and tension rises. I look at the mixture of emotions people are experiencing and it reminds me of when I used to go to restaurants when the salt and pepper were in real salt and pepper shakers and the sugar wasn’t in little paper sachets. And I remember how every once in a while kids who wanted to pull a prank, instead of painting graffiti on buildings and street signs, would open the top of the salt shaker and dump its contents in the sugar bowl or add some sugar to the salt. Christmas often reminds me of those annoying but harmless pranks.

When it comes to Christmas I see and hear people who are at both ends of the spectrum, those who are standing in the sugar bowl, the ones who are really excited about Christmas being just a few days away and who can’t wait for the special time to be here. And there are those who are standing in the salt, those who wish they could simply sweep the whole thing under the carpet like the annoying dust bunnies floating around their house. But for the most part, I would say people stand somewhere in the middle, in a mixture of both the sugar and the salt. Its excitement mixed with fear of the unknown or a repetition of not so pleasant times accompanied by the pain of unresolved issues or the grief of losses past.

Of course I’m in a profession where I hear more than most about what people are going through but I don’t have to go any further than my own back yard to see this play itself out. My family, like most out there, has some of this salt and sugar mixture sitting on the middle of the dining room table. Struggles with addictions, a first Christmas without loved ones, sons, daughters and parents lost in a fog of unresolved issues, blended families and custody issues. Christmas brings with it a time where a sense of connection, closeness, love and joy is somehow even more important than the week before.

I wish I could give everyone a magic boomerang for Christmas - one they could toss in the air and have it circle the people who are part of their life - one that would touch these people and melt all the “stuff” that got in the way and buried the essence of who they are – one that would come back to them and open them to the love they hold in their heart towards each other.