Last night it finally felt like Christmas after spending a quiet evening and this morning with my aunt and uncle (the U.C. minister). Considering he has been in the hospital for a couple of months and that December 2005 might have been his last time in the land of the living: quiet is good. I had the pleasure of walking their dog (a 10 year old golden retriever and former seeing-eye dog) and my own last night. I had the displeasure this morning of picking out a dozen or so kind of burr I hadn’t seen before. It was pine cone shaped, about 2 to 3 cm long with sharp points. My dog got them in bushes next to the sand at the beach in Port Hope.

This might be the first Christmas Eve in 30 years I may be in bed before Christmas. We aren’t going to a Christmas Eve service, we aren’t participating in one, I don’t have to assemble a bike, sled or hockey net. Quiet is good.