Christmas Number 1

Cast of Characters for this post:

MARK: Bearded money-maker and guitar player. Can ride a unicycle and juggle, yet is not in the circus. Occasionally wonders if it is possible to import a Capybara from South America.

JULIE: The writer. Considers herself a quiet person but suspects that others see her as boisterous. Can sing many songs in Gaelic but cannot speak it.

DEB: Mark's mother, and Gran's daughter. Has been referred to as "Poor old Deb" since she was a toddler. (This nickname mildly upsets her.) Deb runs a rest home (Mark says I'm not allowed to call it a "laughing academy"). She also goes to her mother's house at least once a day and tells her not to flush kitty litter down the toilet. Spends most of every day helping those who rely on her - that's over 20 residents, upwards of a dozen employees, and her mother - and might just go crazy because of it.

GRAN: A WWII War Bride, Deb's mother, and Mark's grandmother. Her three interests in life are: her cats; playing cards and/or doing puzzles; and upsetting her daughter. Likes to tell us that she thinks 89 is a great age to die. She is currently 87. (This upsets her daughter.) Gran recently discovered that there is a such thing as flushable cat litter, and promptly bought a bag.

HARVEY: The strong silent type, and also Deb's husband. Lover of dogs, cats, deer, and guinea fowl. Enjoys fixing things and wants to be a trucker when he grows up now that he is retired.

~~~
We all spent Christmas together at Deb and Harvey's house near Bridgewater. There was all the usual stuff: eating too much, drinking just enough, opening presents, playing cards for money, and asking each other if Gran had taken her pills. It was a pretty good day.

We woke up the next morning and decided to take a jaunt into "the city" to see what sort of Boxing Day sales were to be had. The answer was: none. Only in Nova Scotia, folks, are all the stores closed for Boxing Day in spite of the huge advertisements for "Boxing Day Sales" that we saw everywhere. We drove around several empty parking lots and said some bad words. Then we drove back to Bridgewater.

Along the way, we all decided that it might be nice to eat some lobster. Now, Nova Scotians who know what's what never buy lobsters from a store. We all know "a guy" and that is who we get our lobsters from. It's just the way things are around here. (Except for my parents, who sometimes buy their lobsters from the grocery store. But it's the grocery store where my mother works, so that makes it okay.)

So Harvey made a couple of phone calls and we drove off alongside the LaHave River until the river had reached the ocean. There we drove down a dirt road and pulled up to a charming fishing shanty. As we drove up I could see a fisherman in rubber boots next to a purple boat behind the shanty. THIS, folks, is who you buy a lobster from.


We got our lobster, and had a meal to remember. Gran piped up to ask whether she had come along to get them (she had). She then claimed not to care for lobster, right before she ate one whole one plus part of a second. Gran is as sharp as a tack but has NO short-term memory. Last time we went for a visit, she made a few mistakes while playing cards. She laughed, and in her proper London accent, said "it must be my De-men-tee-ah." I was relieved that her card-playing was back up to its usual standards during our Christmas visit.

Mark and I are back home now. I read in the paper this morning that people were lining up at like 10pm Friday night to get into the stores for the "Boxing Day" sales the next morning. Which was not Boxing Day. Ahem.

I'm kind of glad we missed out on it - we would have gotten trapped in traffic and if we'd actually made it into any stores I'm sure I would have had a stroke or something. I HATE crowds.

So that was Christmas #1. Christmas #2 will take place later this week in Truro, at my parents' house. It was delayed because we are Greek Orthodox.

Nah, just kidding. It was delayed because of my sister's fiancé, who had to work on Christmas day because he saves lives and all.

Hope you all had a great Christmas/ holiday/ whatever. I will let you know how round 2 goes in a few days.