December Vignettes

December 2, 2024

Her husband asked her for an update on the weather. “Any big snow coming up?”

She laughed at this, assuring him that she doesn’t actually check the hourly forecast as often as he thinks she does. But the question had planted a seed of curiosity in her mind and a few minutes later, she found herself loading the Weather Network website on her phone.

Not the app.

The good old, awkward website, with its ads for keeping rain gutters clear and other, stranger things.

There was a certain ceremony to checking the weather that would be ruined by using the app. The integrity of the process must be main-

Oh! Oh!

A red bar!

“Did you know?” She breathlessly called to her husband.

“Know what?”

“That there’s a weather advisory for this afternoon and evening? Five to ten centimetres of snow!”

“I promise that I didn’t know,” he laughed.

The snow actually does come, too.

It came down during the roast beef, the coffee, the drive home, the quick mall trip, the walk through the Christmas lights in the park.

It was one of those exceptional snows- not too cold, only fluffy and persistent.

Generously, unbelievably much.

December 6, 2024

What has Advent been like for me this year?

Well, as usual, it’s a church calendar season that is layered on top of regular life, and it takes a little work to bring the two together. It has felt hard to bring myself to do the Advent practices that I chose for this year. They aren’t anything new or difficult- just a quick prayer, listening to compline, and singing a song.

For some reason, it’s easy to simply not do them.

Easier to not consider the ways that darkness is pressing in on me today, easier to not sit my butt on a chair and focus my mind on spoken Scripture, easier to not raise my thin voice in song.

Perhaps I have chosen practices that are too hard? I thought they were simple but could they be simplified even further to-

No.

I don’t actually think Advent should be effortless.

Is this not a time of waiting and wondering? Being caught between two worlds?

It seems like that should feel a little uncomfortable. After all, we are preparing to celebrate. Anticipating a celebration takes preparation and work.

I need to embrace even my own reluctance to acknowledge the yearning for light that is, indeed, with me. This too is a valid part of the experience.

As Bon Iver sings, “There are things with things within things.”

All these things within, I do sit myself down in front of the candles and listen to the day’s scripture reading. It is the first week of Advent and so I have lit one candle. I stare at it and wonder if anyone outside, on the other side of the window, is seeing it too and if they recognize it as the hope candle.

I shift in my seat as I listen to the compline, needing to drag my mind back to the words again and again.

Focus, Jasmine. These words are beautiful and true.

Focus! Maybe that should be my word for 2025!

No. Focus now. On this.

The wick of the candle burns slower than the wax melts, resulting in a flame that gets longer and longer. It beautifully illuminates my Christmas cactus, which has had the audacity to bloom extravagantly this season, despite my own current flounderings in this life. Rude of it, but also… very nicely done.

That flame is getting a little unwieldy, isn’t it? Oh well. It’ll just be another minute. It’s not quite a fire hazard yet.

It’s difficult to only have the one candle lit, while the others stand dull beside it. It’s not balanced or aesthetic. I’m impatient to experience the satisfaction of seeing them all lit.

This impatience is also a part of Advent. Choosing presence where we are. The time of full light will come, but we are not there yet.

Oh dear. It’s only been a few days, but this candle is already significantly shorter than the others. Will it last until Christmas? Am I going to have to buy new candles along the way?

I wiggle a little in my seat.

Time to sing.

December 11, 2024

I made a garland for the first time this year. I very much wanted to do this, and yet I procrastinated every step of the way.

Procuring the greens?

Procrastinate! (I could almost argue that my procrastination paid off in this case, because I procrastinated until the stand’s final day of business and only had to pay half-price for them. However, the real truth is that I was planning to clip the greenery myself from nature for free but I waited too long and everything got damp and snowy.)

Research how to make the garland?

Well, that’s easy. First procrastinate, then skim a few tutorials before deciding to just do it your own way entirely. You need to visualize, really think it through, how this will need to be done in order for it to work. Really get into the physics of it.

Next, let the greenery rest on your dining room floor for a day or two. Just let it really rest, you know?

And then- THEN- get down to business. Best to be on the floor, on your hands and knees, chin-deep in greenery. Build bunches of greenery and then secure them to the long wire, the length of which is meticulously calculated using common sense and your own eyeballs.

Sticky hands, a few recalculations and restrategizations about the physics of this garland, and all that.

Breath a sigh of relief upon finishing. That wasn’t so bad, was it? And it even looks pretty good!

Pick it up to catch a vision of how it will look hanging in the doorway.

Panic because clearly, you did not have the grasp on the physics of the garland situation that you thought you did.

At this point, weird bunches may be hanging down at weird angles. Best to just carefully set it back down on the floor for another day of rest.

Finally, you need to muster the courage to begin Operation Hang the Blasted Garland, which has become quite the thorn in your flesh. (Literally. It gave me a sliver.) Put up a generous amount of Command hooks and attempt to hang the garland. Discover that it is too unwieldy to get up there on your own and wait for help to get home from work.

Once there are two of you, try again. Do not be discouraged by how awful it looks. Just strategically use ornament hooks and clips to bring some order to the situation.

And then…

Feel pretty great about the beautiful, unwieldy garland that you made.

And that’s how I did it. That’s how I made my garland.

December 14, 2026

Fruit flies.

I snatch at one as it dopily dips in my line of vision.

Why are they here, in my apartment, in December?

And why, is one in the living room? Lingering around me?

Am I so stagnant? Am I rotting away, toxic?

I mean, yes, I have recently chosen to thrust myself out of some beloved routines, and yes, I am floundering.

But I’m not rotten. Am I?

The fruit fly swoops in again. I snatch at it again and miss. (Again.)

I sigh.

I have been sitting on this couch for a long time. No wonder the fruit flies are coming for me.

One Day Later

I am at Starbucks with a friend and a fruit fly zooms in.

Really????

I take it personally.

Three Days Later

Facebook feeds me an ad for a local store. One of the advertised products is a fruit fly trap. I get myself there real quick.

Addendum

I now know that the one-handed fruit fly snatch will never work for me. A two-handed clap has proven gross, but more successful.

December 21, 2024

On a numbingly cold Saturday, the darkest day of the year, we (some Shantzes, that is) pile into our tiny car and drive to Toronto to see The Nutcracker. We all look extremely cute and festive, if I do say so myself.

We drive, we subway, and then we walk the streets. I inwardly vow to invest in a pair of earmuffs and some of those fleece-lined tights that look sheer but aren’t.

The theatre is cozy- small, close, with tall-backed seats. A garland of greenery and lights glows at the edge of the stage. I love that the world finds ways to add a little bit more light at this time of year.

The lights dim and the show begins.

Oh! The movement!

The high-stepping graceful forward motions. The joy, worry, and humour that mere movement can contain. I feel the urge to celebrate movement more in my life. I remember borrowing a CD of The Nutcracker score from the library as a child and dancing to it in the living room, feeling wild and graceful. I remember “figure skating” with my friends on the rink at school. It was okay to try back then- to fall and slide and do it again and again. I have become a rather sedentary person.

Hmmm.

On the road home, we fall deep into a conversation about dreams we’ve had. The horrifying and the hilarious sleep excursions that our minds (and sometimes even our bodies) have taken.

The next morning, Ricky and I bundle up for our weekly skate. I have a new pair of skates and the freedom of my feet not being in pain with each push forward is exhilarating. Something about the next skates is different than my old ones and I keep catching the right pick on the ice and nearly falling.

It’s okay though.

I’ll adjust.

I’ll learn.