The Best Christmas Present

after waiting almost two years I finally got to meet my granddaughter

This Christmas was touch and go. As many of you know our sweet Frances had to be put down last week. If that wasn’t bad enough our daughter in New Brunswick, Gaelan, cancelled her trip to Toronto because of the Omicron variant. All the things I had planned to do with Winnie went out the window. I don’t blame them for not coming. Things got complicated with having to put their dog in a kennel and then they had to be back by December 31st because the kennel was closing down for a two week vacation.

That same day we found out the our daughter-in-law had tested positive for COVID so that meant that two more people were not coming to the house for Christmas. Luckily Josie didn’t have to be hospitalized and our daughter Andrea continues to test herself and the results regularly show negative for COVID. In the meantime on the east coast, Gaelan has been testing herself and she kept getting a faint positive result. Fortunately the last couple of tests have come up negative. On Christmas Eve, Kevin and I spent the evening together sans family.

Fingers crossed that Brendan and his family were going to get here from the U.K. Not only was the spread of the variant rampant there but the airlines were starting to cancel flights because they didn’t have the staff to man the flights. On Christmas Day I finally breathed a sigh of relief when I heard that they were on the plane. When they arrived it was raining but seeing my granddaughter for the first time was like a ray of sunshine.

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Jet lag is tough for adults but particularly hard on toddlers. On Sevin’s first night she was up at 3:30 am. I normally sleep till 8:00 but I was in and out of sleep till about 7:00 and I finally decided to get up and actually get outside early and catch the sunrise. We all got warmly dressed. At the least the rain had stopped and we got a peak of the sun coming through the clouds. Seeing that we were up we walked over to the playground so that Sevin could explore.

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Today it started to snow. We spent the morning playing with Play Dough and Sevin and I filled the bird feeder and watched the birds and squirrels come for breakfast.

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We’re hoping to make some video calls to New Brunswick later today and hopefully we’ll be able to see Andrea and Josie in the next few days. Fingers crossed again.

First Snow and Christmas Lights

….pulled out the lights and strung them on the outside tree

On the weekend we cleaned up the garden and put away the lawn furniture. We took out the snow shovel and snow blower and put the garden tools and rakes back in the garage. I also found the outdoor Christmas lights and dragged them out as well.

On Saturday our eldest daughter came over helped me put up the lights. This has to be the earliest I’ve ever put up the lights. I’m usually the one who gets to it a few days before Christmas. This year because of COVID we decided to try and make the Christmas season as cheerful as possible seeing that there will be no Santa Claus parade, shopping mostly on-line or curb side pick-up and no family gatherings.

We’re planning on a Zoom Christmas for now. In Toronto we’re in lockdown again for at least four weeks. To keep our spirits up we’re planning on decorating as normal, doing a cookie exchange and doing drop off deliveries of presents and goodies.

Our first snow was pretty slim down by the lake but other parts of Toronto and north of the city there was quite a bit of snow. Most of it has now melted but I’m sure there will be lots more to come in the next few months.

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first snow by the lake

I’m glad we got the lights up when we did. It was probably the last nice day for awhile. Now that they’re up it helps boost my mood and I’m starting to pull out more decorations.

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