 |
| Lauren Elizabeth Stewart |
In December I begin to look forward to those moments that start somewhere around the 23 when all logical activity ceases and I prepare our Christmas Eve dinner plans. I know that once it is Christmas Day (We do not celebrate it. We put all our crackers, English ones, into the previous evening’s Nochebuena) nothing will happen and Rosemary and I will lazy about the house eating Belgian clamshell chocolates and Spanish marzipan. Cold roast beef with hot mustard will satiate our appetite for food and we will watch films and read books to our hearts’ content. I will drink large mugs of Ceylon and Earl Grey tea.
Funds, Christmas funds, are nonexistent. Rosemary’s old laptop is formally dead. We might scrape up some money for a new one. We need nothing more.
I don’t want a new computer and our Sony Trinitron TV is doing just fine. I will not lust for my neighbour’s new Porsche because I love my Malibu. Because of my promise to not buy books (promise made January 2010) I will not go to Chapters for bargains. My Vancouver Public Library keeps me busy enough with good reading material and a plentiful supply of DVD films that I want to see.
Life is generously bearable and Rosemary and I do not want anything nor will we spring any surprise gifts on each other.
What we do want is health for our children and our grandchildren. We want success in our granddaughters’ future. We hope that Rebecca, 14, might soon abandon her cell phone and find a passion for something that will take her to places she might soon want to go to.
But I have one more request for Christmas. I wish that Lauren, 9, who acts like a little girl, will remain so for at least one more year. I hope that Santa Claus is alive in her heart and that she looks forward to his coming. We will oblige.