Dear Friends

This year I've been thinking a lot about memory.  Part of that is advancing age: remembering is part of the landscape when you've got a lot of life behind you and you've got some doubts about the way the future is unfolding.  

But part of it also is a book project I've been working on for the last while.  Thanks to the Memories: How Remembering Will Get Us Through the Next 75 Years is about collective and individual memory and how both are the basis for civilization.  Dundurn Press will bring it out March 2026, and I have until Feb. 1, 2025 to complete the manuscript.  In the meantime, let me tell you about a memory that is Christmas-related and which is particularly precious for me.

We have to go back more than 40 years when Elin was 6 and Lukas was two and a bit.  She was still
holding firm to her belief in Santa, and when the local CBC noontime phone-in show announced that Santa would pay a visit on Christmas Eve, she was eager to call.

Of course you can, I said, although I had always been slightly uncomfortable with the Santa-business.  After all, it mean lying to the kids, and in principle I am all in favour of honesty and transperency.  But, in that self-deceptive way we all have, I had sometime before made my peace with the Santa lie, and that Christmas Eve I made sure Elin got in the queue for the phone-in.

She wasn't the first caller, but she didn't have to wait long.  When Santa asked she answered truthfully  that she'd mostly been a good girl: score one for honesty-training.  She answered that she wanted a hair-dressing kit for a doll that was the rage that year when he asked what she wanted.  

Good, I thought, because one of them was already tucked away in the secret hiding place for presents.

But then she went on to say that she had a little brother and what he wanted was a carpenter set.

As Santa ho-hoed an assurance that he'd see what he could do, I froze in my tracks. Carpenter set!  Lee and I had talked about getting Lukas a Fisher Price one--new that year--but had decided he was too young even though he was fascinated by building. 

What to do?  What to do? In the end I scurried over to the Woolworth's (yes, it was that long ago) to see what I could find.  The Fisher Price set was sold out, but there was a definitely down-market plastic set of flimsy hammer and toothless saw.  It would have to do.

And it did.  Lukas was delighted and spent a long time (for a two year old) making the appropriate sounds as he built tables and whatnot with blocks: trop mignon as they say around here.  Elin was also pleased with her presents and with the praise we showered on her for remembering her brother.  And I remember that holiday as one of the best ever.

I do hope that you have some holiday memories that give you as much pleasure as that one does me.

As for this year, everyone should be here for part of the Christmas celebrations in various combinations. Jeanne (Elin's daughter, 14) will be helping me make Swedish potato sausage too, and Thom (12) and Louis (8) will bring their skates so perhaps everyone will be able to skate outside  if it freezes or inside if it doesn't. 

The grandkids seem to have had an excellent year with many activities.  We were able to attend several of their events--hockey games for the boys and flag football and chorale concerts for Jeanne.  Their parents seem to also have had a reasonably good year.  At least we've been able to enjoy several great meals and long walks with all of them.

Lee and I did other fun things too. He made a wonderful five foot tall speaker stand for the sound system chez Elin, Stuart and Jeanne. He also finished a long term project which is sort of an hommage to Gothic cathedrals. I worked on the book, and together we celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary in August. All in all, we had a pretty good year inspite of a few health problems that have more or less resolved themselves, and our continuing concern about the way the world seems headed.

So, best wishes for 2025 that isn't as horrible as it might be.  And when the going gets rough, remember that remembering is not an escape but a survival strategy.  Not only does it keep you going  but sometimes it can give you ideas about how to make the best of the situation.  In my holiday message next year I'll write more about that idea.  It's the basic premise behind the book which by that time will be ready to go into production.

 Bisous et câlins until then.

 Mary