WHAT DAY IS IT?

Every day is the same.

Being the one who wakes up first, I usually roll out of bed, kick the coffee pot into gear, let the cat and dog out, and then throw a coat and boots on over my pyjamas and head over to the shop to stoke the wood burning stove.  We have our vegetables over there in an insulated room and it’s vitally important that the temperature never goes below freezing.

It doesn’t take long, and soon I’m back in the kitchen, sipping my first cup of java, and scrolling through my memories of this date on Facebook.  I’m not a fan of everything Facebook does, but I do love this feature.  It’s like having a glimpse of how the grandchildren are growing as most of my memories involve pictures of them, each photo labeled as to how many years ago it was shared.

This year though, this daily wander down memory lane has been even more important.  Each day there are new memories and comments to differentiate that day from the one before or after it. 

Here in 2020 another side effect of Covid-19 lockdown is this feeling of limbo.  Every day is the same.

Although I’ve never realized it before, I must usually gauge the Christmas season on a scale of ‘getting ready for company’ or ‘getting over company’.  Without these markers I am adrift in a series of days that just mirror each other.  And I’m not the only one who feels like this ... the other day (maybe even yesterday) my spouse asked me what day of the week it was.  My answer was “Be darned if I know!”  We had to consult our phones and a calendar so reset our place in the space/time continuum.  This is important – there are only a few days left in this disagreeable year.  I want to know when we can call out “Home Free!”

I suspect that I’m not the only one who feels this limbo-like trance.  My long winter evenings are spent watching movies, thankfully there a lot to choose from.  I’ve noticed that the conglomerates that do TV programming sort what they offer us by season, hence the war movies close to Remembrance Day and the Christmas movies throughout December. 

Their research must go a little deeper than that though, because as I scrolled through the possibilities last night Groundhog Day came up.  My first thought was not that they were getting ahead of themselves.  What I instantly thought was “You got that one right!”  I’ve been repeating the same day for ages, and I’m not even sure which day that is.

So I cling to my Facebook memories:  Six years ago this house was what in 2020 we would call a super spreader event with the entire family home for the holidays – all clustered inside the same house, even the international travellers from Australia, and contributing to the most profitable year the Redvers Coop Grocery Store ever had. 

Four years ago we had a Christmas Day blizzard and one set of grandkids got three extra days of Grandma and Grandpa before the RM graders came along and freed them.

And, dream of dreams, three years ago today we were sitting in Vancouver Airport awaiting our next flight to Sydney to spend our hottest ever Christmas in the land downunder.  Just imagine: travel, visiting, warm weather holiday in the dead of winter.  Ah!  Those were the days!

As much as I am relying on these memories to keep me grounded though, I do realize the only way to get out of this mess is to move forward.  With all the days being identical this is a tricky thing to measure – kind of like watching paint drying or grass growing – but I have come up with a plan.

The one change I have detected going on around here is that all the baking and goodies are disappearing.  I think we are down to a few mince tarts, a dozen gingersnaps, and a box of turtles chocolates (mainly because I hid them).  The butter tarts are gone, and so is the fruit cake and also the lemon cheese puff pastry.  I am sure that if I had kept strict inventory over time a person could work out a scientific formula to describe the passage of time by means of the depletion of baking.  Conversely, another formula could be developed to describe the reappearance of those calories on a person’s hips – but who really wants to get that technical?

And, if we really wanted to go long term, we could work out how long it takes for those hip and tummy calories to dissipate.  My guess might take about the same time as we will wait to get our vaccination ... June-ish.  Hopefully we are all reset back into our proper place in the space/time continuum by then.

 

COVID CHRISTMAS

And so, this is Christmas ...

Here we are in mid December in the unsettling year of 2020, coming to acceptance that just like everything else this year, Christmas will be different as well.  This may sound weird, but I can’t help but feeling that a regular Christmas – even if we could manage it – would not give what we’ve been through a fitting ending.  Maybe I’m just looking at it from the perspective of a writer, but stories need balance.  After what the world has been through in the past twelve months a ‘normal’ Christmas just doesn’t fit.

In a way it seems much longer than a year since we first began hearing about a virus problem in Wuhan, China.  In truth, we were much more focused on the fires in Australia – remember those?  That was only a year ago.

The story grew, expanding to a problem on cruise ships.  Scientists were sounding alarms but the rest of us were still thinking about taking our usual winter holiday.  That was back when being in our own ‘happy little bubble’ meant we were oblivious to what awaited us.  The word ‘bubble’ has a whole new meaning now.

2020 has enriched our everyday language with many other words seldom used previously.  Words like ‘cohort’ and ‘pandemic’ and ‘nova coronal virus’ are all words we’ve heard thousands of times since February.  We’ve also learned about PPE and respirators and essential workers.  And, lockdowns don’t always apply to a prison’s response to rioting.   And there’s a difference between ‘self isolation’ and ‘quarantine’.

The big one, though, was the implementation of the term ‘social distancing’, quickly revised to ‘physical distancing’ to try to soften the emotional isolation humanity began to feel.  In such a time of fear and sickness and so many deaths, not being able to meet, to be together to mourn, to celebrate times – both happy and sad – to share meals, to enjoy sports or movies or concerts all began to take its own toll. 

By March our world was turned upside down.  Schools – on the whole planet – were closed.  People worked from home ... if they could work at all.  Some had no jobs to go to.  Some had to quit jobs to stay home and home school their kids.  Some tried to do both.  For months we banged pots and pans to thank health care workers for their work and sacrifice.

Travellers were trapped in foreign lands with no flights to get them home.  Some were trapped on luxurious cruise ships, Covid stalking them from cabin to cabin with no port of call willing to let their ship dock.  Hospitals over flowed.  Field hospitals sprang up.  Morgue trucks lined up to store the daily tragedies.  Weirdly we all became avid fans of government announcements – who saw that coming?

Our shopping habits have changed.  Our holiday plans are different.  Visiting family and friends – especially out of province – is totally modified.  The ‘old fashioned’ pastimes of baking and gardening have gone through a huge revival.  Golfing and fishing are in and baseball and hockey are out.  2020 has tipped us out of our comfortable boat and made us learn to swim in these uncertain waters.

And so, this is Christmas 2020.  Our bubbles are smaller than ever.  There will be no big turkey dinners or family get togethers.  Our Christmas Eve church services will have to be online, and carolling only outside and far apart.  Zoom will go from work to play as we ‘meet’ over the holidays to share our stories and offer virtual hugs to our loved ones.  A ‘normal’ Christmas it will not be.

But whatever we do with this season will fit our story.  Personally, I have just finished decorating my house – it doesn’t look like any other year.  My tree is smaller and the decorations I used are much less than usual, partly because we will be the only ones to see them, but also because why not try something new?  Our menu will be different too – who has ever heard of a turkey for two?  The important thing is that we will stay safe until our turn at vaccination and the return to a time when Christmas can indeed be ‘normal’.

 

REASON FOR THE SEASON

The whole world seems a little bit wonky at the moment.  We head toward the holiday season unsure of how that will look by December 25^th.  Will we be able to celebrate with our families?  Or will 2020 be a quiet affair, each of us celebrating in our own homes and hoping that the Internet can handle all the Zoom calls?  The happy, sweet innocence of Christmas 2019 seems so much longer ago than a mere twelve months, and the tantalising promise of a safe, vaccinated celebration in 2021 seems too tenuous to trust at the moment.  Here we are – stuck in the middle.

Some things never change though.   This past week or so I’ve started seeing Facebook memes asserting that everyone must say “Merry Christmas” because any other greeting this time of year are fighting words.  This implies that Christians somehow own December, and I think to myself that this whole our-way-or-the-highway attitude is a most un-Christ-like way to treat our fellow men and women.

Did you know that December 25^th is a made up birthdate for the baby Jesus?  People in the Roman Empire picked that day to celebrate the Christ child’s birth almost 400 years after the fact, and not because they were making an educated guess about when it actually happened, but because all the pagan peoples they were trying to convert to their Christian beliefs already had a huge feast and festival at that time of year.  It was proving to be much easier to insert themselves into the pagan celebration than it was to try to banish it.  True story.

Bringing a tree into the house?  Decorating?  Feasting and gift giving?  Lighting candles?  Burning a Yule log?  All of these things were ways humans celebrated long before Christianity came along.  And what they were celebrating, you ask?  Why are there so many ‘competing’ holidays at this time of the year? 

The answer is something every civilization in the Northern Hemisphere has had in common since the dawn of time: the winter solstice.  Imagine living at a time when the daily loss of daylight was unexplained, when you had no supply of artificial light like we do today, when your very food sources – life itself - were directly tied to the sun and the seasons – would you not celebrate when the days began lengthening out again? 

The whole point of celebrating is to be joyous together about something special we believe in, even if our beliefs aren’t exactly the same.  And yet, here we are in the 21^st Century exerting exclusive privilege on a date and a season we borrowed from others.  It seems like a most un-Christ like thing to do.

It’s not the baby Jesus himself that is the ‘reason for the season’ but what his birth symbolized – the beginning of the New Testament ... forgiveness ... love of our fellow man.  Arguing over the proper response to seasonal greetings cheapens what should be Christianity’s most sacred duty – to love our neighbours as ourselves.

If we need something to say that conveys the real meaning of Christmas, let’s follow the angels’ lead and simply greet people with a smile and say “peace on earth!”

It works for everybody.