Season’s greetings for Christmas 2024 and New Year’s 2025 from Thistle Ha’. We are experiencing a more traditional winter season with plenty of snow and cold temperatures.
Our Christmas plans continue a recent pattern. This year, Kristin’s family in Brampton take their turn in hosting Chris, Kristin and Felicity on Christmas Day.
Sadly, John will not be with us this year. He died after a brief illness on March 1, 2024 At his funeral, we were supported by family and friends who provided comfort and many warm memories of John’s life. åBecause of the poor weather that day, none of his friends and former colleagues from Montréal could attend. In April, his former colleagues organized a separate memorial event for John at Loyola Chapel in Montréal. Chris and Jim attended on behalf of the family. We learned much about John’s professional life: his devotion to his teaching and students, and his warm, kind and witty relationships with his many friends and former colleagues. Many of his former students spoke of his warmth and generosity in helping them through difficulties in their studies. We miss John dearly, especially this holiday season.
Felicity is growing up quickly. She’s now three, an avid swimmer and hiker through various conservation area trails. She’s introduced us to the adventures of Bluey, Moana, and Maui and is particularly fond of her books, stuffies, colouring books, and jigsaw puzzles.
In September, Kristin, Chris and Felicity moved to the farm and plan to renovate their own separate living space here. We now have the internet capability to enable Kristin to continue to work from home, with infrequent visits to her Toronto office. When they lived in Whitby, John called them the Whitbys. He called us the Farmers, so are they to be called the Junior Farmers? Juniors seem more appropriate.
Chris looks after Felicity and takes her to her activities while helping his parents with various tasks around the farm. Our neighbours, the Tapscotts, continue to crop the fields.
We all have our memorable Christmas stories. On December 23, a contractor accidentally snagged and severed the power line from the transformer pole to the house and ripped the mast from the stone wall. Hydro immediately responded to disconnect us from the roadside power line. Our contractor took full responsibility for the incident and immediately started searching for an electrical contractor capable of restoring hydro ASAP. Few electricians are qualified to work on high voltage transformer poles. No willing electrical contractor was able to buy all the materials needed from their suppliers because of early business closure on Christmas Eve, so the repairs had to be deferred until after the holidays.
Our contractor offered to pay for a hotel room and meals. Charlotte didn’t want to suffer living with her cats in a hotel room; kennels were full at Christmas. So we stayed home. Our contractor brought in bottled water, a generator with power cords, gasoline every morning, adding a box of chocolates on Christmas morning. We were able to power the water system, two heaters in our living room, and a lamp. With the fireplace going, the living room was comfortable. With a kitchen gas stovetop, we had hot meals. We got a lot of reading done.
An electrical contractor finally showed up on December 27, and we had power by nightfall. Our contractor is looking after all bills, including the cost of Christmas dinner out and replacing spoiled food.
Charlotte told our Christmas guests to go elsewhere. The Juniors were heading off to be with Kristin’s family in Brantford when the power failure occurred, so Charlotte sent them off with our Christmas capon and spare ribs. They returned as scheduled on December 28 to celebrate Christmas here.
So, like most people, this season for our family is a mixture of sorrow, stress, and happiness, but being together provides perspective on the past and hope for the future. We wish you the happiest of holiday seasons and a healthy and fulfilling New Year.
