If forced to distill Christmas, I would choose to think of returning home from university in Montreal to my family in Ottawa for the holidays.
I was young, 18 or 19, and ridiculously, I felt in full command of my life. Montreal was big and Ottawa was small and the future was an ever-stretching field of unbroken potential– love and glory the hand that daily reached out to me.
Feeling adult for the first time, I would step back into my parent’s home– broke and with a massive bag of laundry, mind you– and the first thing that washed over me was the scent of the Prime Rib of Beef that was being prepared for dinner. Infused with an unconscious sense of safety, protection and placement, I knew that I was home and that I was loved.
At the same time, all of my friends whom I had grown-up with were also returning home from forays into university. We’d gather at The Laff or at a party hosted by a friend’s parents and trade stories of the future we had just begun living, but mostly we just fell back into the comforts of our shared past.
Young, passionate and almost always in love, we were ascendant, practically holy. Our parents remained immortal, invincible and ever-present to provide a soft landing spot should it ever be required.
It was a sweet spot, before we knew one another or ourselves too well, and had nothing but hope, certainty and optimism in the future that awaited us all. It was a shared joy in the future, and unspoken, you sensed it in these gathering like a change in temperature.
It was a kind of magic.
This is what I hope Christmas might conjure for you, a shared joy in the possibilities of the future and the simultaneous transport to home, health and love, to the place—whomever or wherever it may be—that you belong.
Merry Christmas, you wonderfully old building and loan, Merry Christmas!