Senior Living: Trying not to write about Christmas — and failing

Cherished memories and must-watch TV specials foil the best-laid plans

Published Dec 16, 2024  •  Last updated 10 hours ago  •  3 minute read

The Christmas season inevitably features traditions that most celebrants love for their sheer ubiquity, reliability and familiarity. A Wonderful Life, anyone? Photo by Getty Images

Confession: I’m not going to write another Christmas column.

I sincerely hope readers aren’t disappointed. There will be plenty of great Christmas stuff to read and watch on TV at this time of year.

(Not to mention world news that threatens to plunge sensitive, caring, Christmas-loving people into despair. But I digress.)

As is my habit this time of year, I was planning to write a Christmas column … until my partner laid out a few fundamental laws: Not another reference to Michael Bublé’s It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas. Great song. Great Canadian crooner. But we’ve heard it hundreds of times.

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Not another fond memory of my elementary school teacher — a native of Ohio, teaching in Montreal because her husband was here in dental school — dressing up as an elf in our classroom for the last school day before Christmas.

Not another annual reminiscence of holiday white snow, which may or may not be falling in some provinces a mari usque ad mare.

Those are the topics I’m not allowed to touch. My Christian partner wants her Christmas-loving Jewish guy to abstain from writing yet another of my usual Christmas columns.

Whew! Aren’t you relieved?

We have eight days until Christmas. You’ve got most of your shopping list covered … at least I hope you have. Back in the day when I was married and our daughter was a preschool child, Christmas was the happiest holiday of the year. My ex had three younger sibs: a sister and two brothers. Her parents had a night-before-Christmas dinner in which we ate great stuff and distributed presents to be opened in the morning at the five houses.

Around our Christmas tree, my wife, daughter and dog had presents to open. It was kinda chaotic but super pleasurable. We took turns for each of our presents. Each of us ripped open the bows and colourful holiday wraps. Each of us had surprising Christmas gifts.

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Each of us loved ‘em all. The Christmas memories linger. And I’m still nostalgic about it.

My ex-wife and her husband have moved to the west coast. My daughter has a job and a condo in Victoria.

She’s been in B.C. for a while. Several years ago, I was out there hanging with my daughter and enjoying our time together.

In the years since, I’ve had medical issues. And travelling across the continent makes me nervous.

I miss her … all the time and especially at Christmas.

There will be pre-Christmas specials on TV … many of them.

My fave: I’ve watched A Charlie Brown Christmas — a masterpiece — since 1965. Peanuts was my favourite cartoon, in the newspaper and then on TV. I identified with Charlie Brown. Like him, I tended to screw things up. Like him, I loved dogs. And I’ve had a great succession of four-legged friends.

But lucky me: No Lucys.

Another masterpiece: A Christmas Story, the 1983 classic in which a glasses-wearing kid dodges a bully and wants a BB gun as his favourite present.

One more: It’s a Wonderful Life, the 1946 Frank Capra masterpiece starring James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore.

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OK, enough! There’s family celebration that should keep the TV off (for a while.)

Dec. 25 is one of the happiest days of the year. And I hope many readers are planning to celebrate with family and friends.

In the absence of a Christmas column, I wish everyone a happy one.

What are your plans for New Year’s Eve?

I used to celebrate the last few hours of December 31. As a regular guest at a good friend’s place, I’d be joining fellow celebrants in sipping some champagne at 12:01 a.m. Those were the good old days. Now a truth about the new days: My partner and I will be sleeping by the time 2025 begins.

I hope the young ‘uns have a great time. Drink happily. Don’t drive.

And let’s hope 2025 is a great year.

Or at least not a terrible one.

— Mike Boone writes the Life in the 70s column. [email protected]

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